Cosgrove Clayton: Motions — Family Support Tax Credit—Increase 
Cosgrove Clayton: Motions — Family Support Tax Credit—Increase 
[Volume:638;Page:8350] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 After that vein-popping dissertation from Dr Lockwood Smith we were not sure whether the member had burst or was about to burst some organ in his system. He got so worked up. I am not getting off the subject but for a moment I ask whether members recall that wonderful television series called  
Dad’s Army?  
Members might be able to assist me because I cannot quite recall the name of the old fellow who had gone out to the African wars or whatever who had this wonderful saying. He used to say to Captain Mainwaring: “They don’t like it up ’em—the old cold steel do they? They don’t like the old cold steel up ’em.” Well today in political terms what this motion has done to that party on the other side is to put the cold steel into them. 
I predict that that great genius Lockwood Smith will probably take a point of order just as he does every time I bring this up because he hates it—just as Darren Hughes predicted that the first three lines of his speech would be to quote his 23 years’ lineage in this House. He said he had never before in his 23 years seen this that and the other. That is the man who asks what low-income households should celebrate. I will tell members what they should celebrate. They should celebrate their 9000 sons daughters brothers and sisters who are in apprenticeships today for instance—apprenticeships that that member gutted in 1992 when the National Government abolished the Apprenticeship Act. He is the member who stands before the House and denies—as he does every time I make this speech and I wonder whether he will again because he has never won the point of order when he has made it—that the Apprenticeship Act got abolished and dealt to by him. Not only that; he is proud of it. 
What those 9000 young people should celebrate today is what we have done to give them a chance and a career in trade training. I was with Russell Fairbrother at the builders’ breakfast this morning. There were 150 builders there many of whom have young people working for them and have taken advantage of a modern apprenticeship system that that other crowd sold them out on. Well that silly member over there who should be on heart pills or something else would know if he read the statistics that on the East Coast of the North Island today there are carpenters—young people who are straight out of their time—who are earning $57000 a year. What did they get under that member’s Government? Zip! They got nothing except an abolished Apprenticeship Act which he is proud of. I say to that member that the old cold steel is waiting for him. He may enjoy it of course but it is waiting for him. 
This Government motion No. 1 makes a stark challenge to the National Party because if we look at the figures we see that 350000-plus families out there who were earning on average $88 per week in tax credits before this now earn $98 per week. I am told that Dr Bollard said to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—which I think Dr Smith is still a member of nominally—that before this $10-a-week increase with the Working for Families package there had been an increase in average real wages of 6 percent. Members should mark that. 
Unemployment is down to 3-plus percent—to 3.4 percent or 3.6 percent. Three hundred thousand jobs have been created in the 7½ years that this Government has been in office compared with Dr Smith’s great 23 years in the House. What a history that is! In June 1999 before that member was routed by the people his response to unemployment was the “mother of all Budgets”. To quote Mrs Shipley at the time National’s response to getting unemployment down was: “The Government believes our goal of reducing unemployment must now be matched by clear programmes that attempt to reverse the growing trend of domestic purposes sickness invalids and accident compensation claimants.” In English that means that the “mother of all Budgets” which she cut. So those members’ answer to unemployment was to slash benefits. 
What did it do? In June 1999—when that genius was still a Minister after his 23-year record in the House—unemployment was 7 percent. What is it today? It is 3.4 percent—the second-lowest in the OECD. How many jobs did that genius create over 9 years in office? 
Darren Hughes 
: Zip. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Zip. How many jobs have been created today under a Labour Government of 7½ years? We have created 300000 jobs. I would tell the member to stick that in his pipe and smoke it. 
I welcome debating that member’s 23 years of lineage in this House against the 7½ years that we have spent creating jobs creating wealth creating growth in the economy giving young people a chance and giving students a chance with interest-free loans—which he hates of course because he brought in the botched student loan system. He hates the fact that a student might get a degree and have a decent shot in life without finishing that degree with a mortgage but without a house. The member of course got his PhD in animal husbandry I think—whatever that is. Some member might be able to assist me in defining what that means. 
Of course the member got his degree under the old system but he does not give a rat’s for what young people might have to go through today—and the facts speak for themselves. I often say in speeches in this House that we cannot treat people and our communities as if they are stupid. Every day that mob over there gets up and tries to seduce people with its 23-year record in the House. Members opposite have a so-called record of achievement such as their 9 years of huge unemployment of benefit cuts of cutting the pension and of abolishing apprenticeships—what a wonderful record that member has in his 23 years in this House. What a superb human being he is! In fact we should go and buy the  
Hansard  
and send it out. What an incredible record that member has! 
I remember when the students came. They did not give him the custard pie. I was the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee at the time and the students came in to thank him. They gave him a cake I think at the Finance and Expenditure Committee and he did a runner of course. He did a runner and the students chased him down the corridor with a cake—the debt cake I think it was thanking him for the debt that they had been saddled with. What a great legacy this PhD in animal husbandry has. I say to that member that a heck of a lot of people out there would welcome the fact that we are dealing to child poverty. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not mind the personal abuse at all but maybe the member should get his facts a little bit straight. If he is interested my PhD is actually in physiology. It is in intestinal physiology and I won a Commonwealth scholarship—as did Dr Michael Cullen—to study for my PhD. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Dr Smith. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My apologies Mr Assistant Speaker; I am gratified. I did not quite know and I yield to the member’s intestinal physiology. I think that it has something to do with guts—which is something that that party over there never had a lot of. That crew over there never had a lot of intestinal physiology or guts. But of course those members get up every day in this House and try to rewrite history. 
I say today that on 1 April we will give families back a tax credit. We had Heather Roy over there—“Private Roy” or whatever they called her back in the trenches with Captain Mainwaring and the boys and Rodney Hide—say that hang on we should not give people their money back. Then she said that we should give people back their money and she could not quite work it out. The difference between the parties is this. It is the difference between the flat tax and the flat-earth merchants in ACT and the members in the National Party who wanted to borrow $3.5 billion then cut another $3.5 billion out of our public services to give people a tax cut. 
Let us remind people of what they would have got under Dr Lockwood Smith’s intestinal Government—if it had ever got in. We in this House would have got around $98 a week and three out of four people I think it was would have got around $20 a week. So my constituents in Oxford and in Kaiapoi—those working families; those lower-income people and even those middle-income people—would have received just that. A family with three or four kids on $50000 a year—which is not a big salary if one has kids these days given the expenses involved—would have got that. But even middle-income people would have got a whole $20 a week. Dr Smith could have gone and done another PhD. He would not have needed a scholarship in intestinal physiology; he would have been able to use his $100 a week that John Key would have given him—while everybody else got $20—to go and do it and to pay for it himself. He would have had a bit of lose change over to go and buy a few sausages down at the butcher. 
I say that that is the difference between the parties. We believe in targeted tax credits. We believe in taking the money in. Under our system today Dr Smith and I do not get any more dough. I know that it irks him. I know that he could probably spend it on intestinal research; I know he could. And I am sure that I could probably spend $100 extra a week but I do not think that I deserve it and I do not think that he deserves it. I do not think that anybody who is in the top income bracket—the top 5 percent—deserves it but I do believe that three out of four New Zealanders deserve on average the $88 or $100 a week that they will get under this package. I do believe that the lost and lonely who are now being helped with in-work payments to encourage them to get into jobs and stay in jobs will welcome this when they compare the hollow promises from the hollow men who sit opposite pontificate and—in their 23-year record in this House—try constantly to rewrite history.