Swain Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Swain Paul: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:632;Page:4147] 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 One of the most galling things about this Parliament is having to listen to Rodney Hide criticising the Minister of Finance. Rodney Hide is some sort of second-rate ballroom dancer who cannot hold on to his partner— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No he’s a wrestler. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is right—he is a wrestler. He has come back to this House finally and eventually after being off doing other far more important things to try to boost the poll ratings of the ACT party— 
Darren Hughes 
: From one to two. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes and of course doing hopelessly— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It went from two to one. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes that is right; it went backwards as a result of his performance. To have Rodney Hide of the ACT party criticising the Minister of Finance is absolutely and utterly galling. 
Of course the ACT party is still chanting the same old mantra which is tax cuts. It is interesting that when we actually analyse the tax cuts that it is talking about we see that they mean roughly a $100 tax cut for Rodney Hide and $10 for the average worker. That is the kind of thing that has happened in Australia. It is the kind of thing that happens to Mr Rodney Hide. Of course he is always the first to come out and say we should have more inquiries into this matter or that matter—costing more money—and do more for roading and the sorts of things he says are holding up Auckland’s development. Yet when he comes into this House he chants the same old mantra about tax cuts that the National Party chants. 
ACT and the National Party have said in the past that they would borrow to fund tax cuts. I heard that during the election campaign. They were not going to spend the surplus on them but were going to borrow to finance them. There was some kind of voodoo arrangement— 
Darren Hughes 
: Getting it from overseas. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is right. They were going to do it not by borrowing but by getting it from overseas. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right—something like that. With smoke and mirrors and a bit of voodoo economics these tax cuts were somehow going to materialise. Of course everyone knew what was going to happen and that is why the National members opposite and the dregs of the ACT party are still sitting over on that side of the House. 
Those parties could never actually bring themselves to say they would sell State assets. They talked about a few farms here and there. Every time they were pushed on State assets they said: “We were going to sell Kiwibank but we’re going to keep it and we were going to sell Landcorp but no we’ll keep it.” They were always going to sell something but when pushed on it they would never define what. They knew that if they actually came out and said what they would sell they would not be electable. No one would support them because everyone had had a gutsful of asset sales. That is something the Labour Government learnt a long time ago and that is the reason we decided— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: We learnt it hard. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: We learnt it very hard in 1990 as I recall. Our caucus went from about 62 down to about 29. That was a lesson we learnt. Clearly the National Party and the ACT party still have not learnt it. 
Of course there is no question in our mind that those members opposite would cut superannuation. Superannuation would be back on the agenda and the stability we have had for the last 6 years would be completely lost. It would be gone. Don Brash talked about not caring who owned the schools. People know what that is code for. It is code for flogging off things like the schools and the hospitals again. 
If we weigh that up against what the current Minister of Finance Michael Cullen has been able to do we see he has been able to salt money away to ensure sure that when the economy goes a bit soft—and we know that that is happening at the moment—we have an automatic stabiliser so that we do not have to wrench on the handbrake which is what National would have had to do if it had carried out those tax cuts. Right about this time those members would have had to be cutting funding for health and education and they would have been saying to the elderly that they would have to do something about superannuation because of the huge tax cuts they needed to fund somehow. 
Michael Cullen has a careful plan which involves economic transformation making sure our Working for Families package is funded properly and building things around our national identity—our film industry and others things—to make sure New Zealanders feel proud again. It is a proper economic programme. But what do we hear from the National Party and the ACT party? We hear the same old tired mantra about tax cuts and flogging off State assets. They are talking about the 1990s. They want to drag New Zealand back kicking and screaming to the 1990s—back from the growth including huge employment growth that New Zealand has had. Most people have forgotten about the 1990s. That period is now like a bad nightmare they had. The National Party is about going backwards; the Labour Government is about going forwards.