Foss Craig: General Debate 
Foss Craig: General Debate 
[Volume:669;Page:15927] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 Two years into being in Opposition in its second year in Opposition and Labour is exactly where it was 2 years ago. It is roughly where it was in the polls. Phil Goff’s ratings are about the same as they were. In fact Phil Goff is now in competition with the CPI index in terms of his popularity rating—no one knows the man. Labour’s factions are deeper though; that has changed. The various factions are trying to work out who will be the next leader. As Mr English just noted nothing has changed in that Labour members still think the voters were wrong in 2008. That is what they are saying. Well voodoo Labour Party is here. Voodoo Labour Party is back. Members over there in the various factions are putting pins in their various voodoo dolls of each other. The Hon Chris Carter is right: the gentleman over there is probably a nice guy according to him but he will not win the next election. 
Voodoo economic policy has arrived with a couple of speeches in the last couple of weeks from the Labour finance spokesman and from the Leader of the Opposition. Voodoo economics is here. There are flip flops the “Axe the Tax” bus races around the country but there is no commitment. Voodoo taxes are on the way if the Labour Party ever gets back into Government. Labour seems to be promoting voodoo tax increases across the board. Voodoo gift duty would come back under a Labour Government even though the Crown collects $1.5 million a year and it costs the economy $70 million. That is voodoo economics. Voodoo GST changes are coming according to Labour. It might take GST off fruit and veges but we are still not sure whether it will reverse the whole lot. And there is the voodoo inbound transactions tax. That is what Labour is promoting and I will come back to it in a moment because it is voodoo stuff. There are voodoo spending promises from the Labour Party; it is up to about $7 billion right now. It has a voodoo leader who is now copying and pasting speeches from the United Kingdom Labour Party. Labour is promoting a voodoo monetary policy. It is actually doing the exact reverse of what every central bank and every Government around the world is doing to try to address the global financial crisis. Labour is trying to weaken essentially the parameters that the Reserve Bank must operate under. 
Labour has a voodoo accounting policy now. I bring members a quote from the person who would like to one day be the next Minister of Finance. Just listen to this quote from his recent speech: “If the Government invests in growing an asset like a forest that asset appears on both sides of the Crown balance sheet”—no assets appear only on one side of the Crown’s balance sheet—“and need not increase net debt but does increase net worth.” What on earth is that about? A third- form economics student would be failed and sent to the back of the class if they put that kind of stuff in an essay. I have no idea what it is about. It is voodoo accounting coming from the voodoo Labour Party. It has a voodoo finance spokesman—we are not sure whether it is Mr Caygill resurrected or Mr Cunliffe and even Mr Goff is not too sure. It has a voodoo investing policy: it wants to borrow from foreign markets to give to the Superannuation Fund to invest in foreign markets. I cannot work that one out. 
The inbound transactions tax is a voodoo tax. That is what Labour is now promoting. What would it mean? Higher interest rates for New Zealand. That is a tax on exports. Every receipt that comes into New Zealand under a Labour Government would be caught up by this new thing called the inbound transactions tax. Any money sent home by New Zealanders—our kids overseas or friends overseas wanting to send money home—will be subject to Labour’s new voodoo inbound transactions tax. I am very very fearful of what it might do. Labour essentially wants our kids to stay away and stay away for longer. Why does it hate success so much? 
Labour has a voodoo asset management policy. Labour wants to take a more active role in the economy. Not one of its members has spent more than 5 minutes in the real sector—not one. Mr Goff wants to put on his shorts socks and sandals get his clipboard put his pens in his pocket and go around various State-owned enterprises and tell them how to run the show. That is what the new voodoo asset management policy of the Labour Opposition is promoting. It wants to unleash State-owned enterprises and their subsidiaries—or not their subsidiaries. Essentially it wants to sell Kiwibank according to a speech from Mr Cunliffe the other day. He forgot I guess that Kiwibank is a subsidiary of New Zealand Post but subsidiaries are the things that Labour wants to dilute the equity of. 
This National-led Government is doing an awesome job. We have a challenging economic programme. We are delivering better smarter public services. We are reforming regulation education and skills and business innovation and are investing in productive infrastructure. This country does not need voodoo economics or voodoo Labour policies.