<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>1:55 i can't remember a time when our expectations have hung so fearfully upon the annual budget <,> despite the alarums and excursions of the years since the first DOUGlas budget nineteen ninety one promises to confront us conclusively with the bleak bill of our economic decline <,> nor can i recall a prime minister who has chosen so firmly to be our harsh instructor in the realities of this GLOOmy prospect by and large prime ministers like to woo the electorate and comfort the backbenchers with visions of good times to come even sir robert muldoon found it necessary to subdue his minatory function as minister of finance with the brave hopes of think big mister bolger clearly believes that the last illusions of the comfortable past must be swept away the historical path is relentlessly downward and all the palliatives conjured up to persuade us that the painless social engineering will turn us back towards the light have failed <,> it's <&>3:00 remarkable that the prime minister has foregone the usual cheap partisan shots he does not single out the labour party accepting that our <.>m economic maladies were clearly apparent by the midseventies and that both parties evaded the challenge <,> since he became a prominent member of the longest serving government of that era and in opposition was party to the policies that won an election and can no longer be sustained he cannot and DOES not seek to evade his share of the blame <,> for my part though i do not necessarily accept the logic of the solutions that seem to be waiting in the wings for the drama of the budget debate i have to admire the hardihood with which he confronts the rage of voters and the widening dismay of his own parliamentary supporters <,> in general the basic lesson is clear as a poor country our best hope is to attract productive investment by offering cheap weakly unionised labour disciplined to accept arduous and insecure <&>4:00 conditions of work this will also be a key factor in reducing the rate of inflation and will be buttressed by steady reduction of government expenditure on welfare social services construction projects and public debt servicing <,> a low tax regime arguably mister bolger's most passionately defended bastion will be popular with investors will also wean us away from the habit of quick fixes from the public purse to satisfy the plaints of electorally significant minorities <,> as a complement to this the pressure to create and sustain protection for industry through subsidy licence and tariff will be resisted thus the market will reveal and prosper those enterprises which can sustain profitability against domestic and foreign competition <,> this doesn't sound much like any sort of new zealand known to its citizens for the last century though it has been in the making since the bombshell of rogernomics it's no wonder that there's a sharp increase in apprehension now that its painful <&>5:00 regime <,> <.>b has become clear in the main the argument centres upon equity some beneficiaries have been reduced to poverty <,> there's a fear that adequate medical treatment will be beyond the purse of the poor promises made by the national party when sir robert mulDOON sought an electoral advantage over labour's new ZEALand superannuation scheme in nineteen seventy five will now be broken the more recent promise to restore the guaranteed retirement income by removing labour's tax surcharge will apparently be vitiated by means testing the new labour legislation has weakened the power of unions to protect employment conditions and intensified the trend towards greater disparity in incomes <,> the vision of an egalitarian society is GONE sacrificed in the opinion of many to a blinkered reliance upon unregulated market forces there are however powerful arguments that equity is itself the grand illusion while it may be true that new <&>6:00 zealanders enjoyed full employment and relative prosperity for many years after the war the dominance of the state in regulation income transfers and in resource development merely created favoured minorities who assiduously promoted their various forms of protection at the expense of the vast body of citizens <,> i was discussing this subject recently with a friend who's been in the best POSSible position to follow the course of the repeated uncoordinated and unequal interventions of the state <,> he grew increasingly agitated as he described the fat cats with institutional access to those who could provide economic advantages which served only to increase costs and to subsidise the affluent he's an economist and thus a devotee of the market but he's also a benevolent intelligent and informed pragmatist <,> i found it hard to refute his arguments that with the steady movement towards lower prices for our agricultural trade the moment of truth for a confused inefficient and ultimately delusive pursuit of equity was bound <&>7:00 to arrive <,> now all this is a matter of degree noone suggests the state will retreat entirely from the promotion of equity only a savage autocracy could do so social welfare benefits may be reduced but they will not be eliminated public health services may be curtailed and a greater share of health expenditure may be met from the private sector but the hospitals will continue to operate and the practitioners' fees will be subsidised <,> of course the demeaning practice of means testing may have to be reinstated if my friend is right about the inevitable plundering of the public purse all we can hope for is that the bill will be significantly smaller <,> what we are REALLY confronted with is the need to identify the extent of the public interest in particular objectives the degree to which action by the state is NEcessary and therefore properly funded from the public purse <,> this balanced approach will take time to achieve in a crisis and we have BEEN in a crisis effectively ever <&>8:00 since sir robert muldoon sought a dissolution in nineteen eighty four the drive to innovate as the full impact of economic failure becomes increasingly apparent has made EACH solution revolve around the <.>mi limitation of state action <,> tut this is both natural and misleading reform is certainly necessary but in time it will be seen that much that has been thrust inCONtinently into the private sector would have been better left in the public domain the rush to diminish the state's responsibilities has gone too far for the public good there's no space to cover the whole field but as a telling example we may gain insight by considering the vital and perplexing <&>pronounced as perpexing function of tertiary education we can assume that all agree with the proposition that effective tertiary education is essential for a community seeking a productive innovative economy and a diverse stimulating social life tut <,> these are virtues that must attract the support of any electable government we also know that the majority but by no means ALL tertiary students <&>9:00 enrol shortly after completing their secondary education MANY remain dependent upon their parents for their incomes until they complete their qualifications while some manage to secure parttime work usually in the long vacation this is becoming increasingly difficult to find a substantial fee is required at enrolment the student equipped with a respected qualification may reasonably expect to commend more highly paid employment than someone with no tertiary <.>ele qualification <,> swallows tut for those who aspire to many fields of employment a recognised qualification is either a mandatory prerequisite or so commonly demanded that employment is highly unlikely to those without <,> since such positions are often the means of access to the higher reaches of remuneration tertiary qualification can be seen to offer considerable economic advantage <,> now before considering the issues remember that large institutions are <&>10:00 complex affairs that cannot be turned on and off like a machine a substantial sudden change in their method of operation may be disastrous over generations once run down in staff and students a tertiary institution cannot be quickly restored to confident operation tut it's clear that the present government is contemplating changes in the way tertiary institutions acquire their resources whatever they may do one can only hope that they move gradually and cautiously measuring the impact of their changes on the institutions as they take effect when social welfare benefits were reduced some time ago the government indicated that those on higher incomes could be expected to make their own contribution to reducing government expenditure inhales by being required to meet a larger proportion of the costs of public services the minister of education has now suggested that the fees for higher education exacted from students should be increased substantially <,> given the circumstances of most students this means in practice that their parents will have to give or lend the money to their <.>s children <,> the <&>11:00 minister gave assurances that those students who had insufficient income to contribute substantially to the fees could expect to receive government assistance <,> thus the means test is considered to be appropriate in this field as well as social services <,> tut if one takes the view based on narrow considerations of equity this seems fair beneficiaries are hurting so why not those who hope to ensure that their offspring get an educational kickstart in the economic rat race <,> the economy benefits from reduced taxation so attractive to foreign investors whose children will be no doubt educated elsewhere <,> but let's look more closely at this question of equity will there be an infinitely variable scale rising from the solo single parent with a cleaning job whose bright daughter shows academic ability up to say one of the lords of the stock market whose son and only child wishes to take a music degree at victoria's <&>12:00 noted music department does the stockbroker pay the full cost of tuition while his old mate at the treasury very comfortably off at half the stockbroker's income pays two thirds of the fees for the polytech design course followed by his son and half those for his daughter's medical course at auckland in the meantime what happens to his brother who has five bright children but as a schoolteacher in winton is just over the bar for those who can look to scholarship assistance <&>pronounced as assistant just what proportion is equitable in doctor lockwood smith's calculation and HOW to use a term from greek philosophy is distributive justice to be done <,> the fact is that we have no cultural preparation for privately funded tertiary education parents have not saved and invested for this generational expense as they do in the united states <,> to the thousands of parents who are at best just getting by a great increase in fees would be a crippling burden <,> moreover there's practically no tradition of private benefaction <&>13:00 for university expansion and little chance that it will be forthcoming any substantial move towards private funding must be risky remember two major interests are at hazard the first is the generation of students already beset by the problems of underfunding of buildings and staff <,> they're cut off by economic decline from the financial supplement of casual labour <,> and they face uncertainty of future employment we need desperately to make a new enterprising and inventive society tertiary education is not a sufficient condition for this but it's certainly a necessary one it's essential also that a sufficient breadth of opportunity should be retained to counter the inequality that the current reform process is encouraging professor lauder of the education department at victoria university of wellington is reported as saying that new zealand will soon have a market led system only one step from full privatisation in which choice will be available for the few who can afford it while for the rest equality of <&>14:00 opportunity and standards of education will decline in a highly stratified and rigid education system will the CHOOSERS with every advantage of better scholastic preparation and greater financial resources monopolise the places available to them in institutions of higher learning scrabbling for the student's dollar <,> is it too late i wonder to revive the concept of a life cycle loan for higher education if i'm to argue from the standpoint of equity i must admit that the taxpayer whose circumstances and aspirations preclude the possibility of tertiary study has some legitimate objection to the compulsory employment of his resources to provide education for a class of fellow citizens with much better employment <.>prospect a scheme that required graduates educated at the community's expense to accept an obligation to repay those costs by some scheme of graduated taxation loading may be practicable of course one <&>15:00 can envisage problems of hardship and evasion but these should not be insurmountable for one class of student i am particularly concerned although my feelings are not apparently shared by the minister of education <,> not all students come to tertiary study directly from secondary school in my experience an increasing number have come from that group who were denied the chance of advanced study earlier and have returned as what are rather primly known as mature students many of these are women their child caring days over or nearly and their ambition to use their native talents newly revived i can't speak for other teachers but for ME their presence in the classroom was a joy they had overcome the condition that so often leaves new zealanders with GROSS incapacity for oral disputation they read they argue they enlarge their confidence many of them are now in demanding jobs where they <&>16:00 have succeeded brilliantly should an insuperable financial hurdle now be set up to thwart their return to tertiary education it would be a crime against humanity fortunately the minister of education was taught a sharp lesson on this subject when he made a fool of himself in an exchange with a mature student at the wellington polytech recently we can hope that this experience might encourage caution when the government reviews the funding of higher education <&>16:25