English Bill: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 22 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:133. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister):Why is that man David Cunliffe not the leader of the Labour Party? He is articulate if not eloquent. He has got the best rhetorical hand movements in the business and what is more he is experienced. He has been a Minister. He has run an election campaign. He came through the TV debates right up there with John Key. Why is he not the leader of the Labour Party? Wait—perhaps one day he will be. As my colleague said: “Cunliffe for 2023.”Tim Macindoe: A bit soon.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well they will still be in Opposition but yeah maybe a bit soon. What Mr Cunliffe demonstrated is what is at the heart of the definition of a cult—that is irrational and extraordinary self-belief. David Parker was right. Actually he exemplifies it more than most of them. He called the Labour Party a cult because Labour members still believe that New Zealanders are in the thrall of an extremist neo-liberal centre-right Government that deceived them in 2008 that Helen Clark should still be the Prime Minister and that tax deductibility of research and development is what is going to change the world.I disagree with my colleague Jonathan Coleman. The other day he said the Labour members are in the fifth stage of grief. I do not think they are. I think they have not yet reached the first stage which is realising that they lost the 2008 election because New Zealanders did not like their direction and policy. How do we know they do not believe it? Because they campaigned on the same policies in 2014 as in 2008 which actually happened to be about the same policies that they campaigned on in 1996 1999 2002 and 2005. So the Labour Party one day will admit this basic fact: the voters are right and it is Labour that is wrong and it will not have the cultish belief that Labour is right and the voters are wrong.Actually we saw it on the campaign trail because one of the reasons that John Key led this Government to a victory in that campaign was his fundamental belief in the capacity of New Zealanders to run their own lives and do what is best for New Zealand. Time and again during the campaign when we were saying that over the last 4 or 5 years New Zealanders have had to readjust the way they do things they have made changes in their households and in their workplaces they have adjusted their debt they have been careful with their spending and we’re headed in the right direction the Labour Party was saying: “No no New Zealanders got it wrong. They made their decisions when we should have been the Government—it should have been us. We know best.” It is pretty simple; that is why people did not vote for them. Time and again we saw the Labour Party telling New Zealanders that they have done it all wrong. Well they have not. They have done it all right.And we now have six former leaders in the Labour Party to demonstrate that probably in the long run the voters—they are holding out—will outlast the next Labour leadership reshuffle. It is not an election anymore; it is a reshuffle. You used to reshuffle spokesmen but now you reshuffle leaders. Whose turn will it be? Is it Andrew? Is it Grant? Who lost the most weight? The right name for the Labour leadership campaign is “The Biggest Loser” because whoever wins it will certainly lose the next one. That is how it is going to work because that is what has happened with the last four Labour leaders. So on “Planet Labour” winning is losing. The only thing you know when you win the Labour Party leadership is that you will certainly lose it.In the meantime the Government is getting on with the job of building on the sustainability of this economy and there are a number of promising indications—no guarantees but promising indications—that this economy can keep producing more jobs and higher incomes for a number of years. For instance our concerns about inflation have moderated. We are unlikely to go into the kind of inflation spiral we went into in the mid-2000s under the Labour Government. Inflation is moderating. Unemployment is dropping pretty consistently. That is why Kiwis are staying home—unemployment is dropping here; it is going up in Australia. But that is another good sign. The fact that New Zealanders are staying home is another good sign. It also looks as if it is possible that we will have a slightly lower cycle in interest rates this time round. Our first-mortgage rates will not reach 10 percent as they did in 2008 and the labour market is proving to be pretty flexible. We are able as a country to rebuild Christchurch—we have got enough people to do it—as well as growing our other businesses and growing employment.The Government is working on the kinds of policies that will underpin an extension of that sustainable economic growth and we will continue to focus on the Business Growth Agenda very ably run by my colleague Steven Joyce. Those are a whole lot of detailed decisions that all add up to an environment where businesses will invest another dollar and employ another person where Kiwis with a bit of initiative realise it is going to be worthwhile stepping out and taking a risk. So we will continue with the Business Growth Agenda. Also we are going to focus on two other things that are really critical to the success of this economic cycle. One is to maintain slightly contractionary fiscal policy. One of the reassuring things about the election campaign was general political agreement that relatively tight fiscal policy is the right thing for this economy. Of course the trick is that when you are the Government you actually have to execute that. We are in pretty good shape to do that although it will be difficult. The last thing this economy needs is a Government going on a spend-up but if we are going to have tight fiscal policy we have to really understand what drives the Government’s costs.I want to recognise the efforts of my ministerial colleagues and our caucus through the last 4 or 5 years in holding to the line that we can produce better public services even with the same or less money and that the measure of how much we care is not how much money we spend; it is what results we get. That is at the core of our fiscal discipline. The key to smaller government is better government; not bigger government but better government. And that means that we will be focusing very strongly on families and communities; not on the traditional way of saying we spent $100 million with the Ministry of Education and that is how you know that we care.So the Government has a pretty challenging programme. New Zealanders’ expectations about the economy are high. They need to see this economy performing and we are geared up to do what we can to ensure a high performing economy. They also expect that we will get results for the $70 billion or so that they hand to us every year to spend on their behalf and those results are going to get more challenging to achieve. Getting the first 10 percent more kids through National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 is bound to be easier than the next 10 percent. It is going to require more cooperation with communities more cooperation across Government.Finally can I just acknowledge the National Party team: an outstanding leader in the Prime Minister but a team of MPs candidates and volunteers who demonstrated the cohesion the energy and the teamwork that New Zealand has now come to expect as the benchmark for Government. They will not always agree with us in this term but there is every commitment from this Government to maintain the same kind of cohesive team-driven Government that respects New Zealanders and their efforts that builds on their self-reliance and enterprise and that does its best on behalf of all New Zealanders to create a better country for them. In particular—Tim Macindoe: A superb Minister of Finance.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well actually a superb quote yesterday from the Minister of Finance’s maiden speech—I noticed how Mr Bishop cultivated favour with all the senior politicians that he has worked with over the years. He did not leave any of them out.Coming into a third term the Government remains more committed and I believe more capable of dealing with some of the bigger challenges like long-term welfare dependency; like the ability of our businesses to grow sustainably over time through a business cycle. We look forward I have to say to the day when the Greens New Zealand First and Labour get over their grief get organised and start putting a bit of pressure on us. I am just not sure how long that will take. At the moment the signs are not promising but we will do better when they do better and it is in the interests of the country that this hopeless rabble of an Opposition gets its act together.