Auchinvole Chris: Budget Debate 
Auchinvole Chris: Budget Debate 
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CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 Madam Assistant Speaker thank you very much for an opportunity to speak this afternoon. In respect of the member who has just spoken Lynne Pillay I note that one could not hear all of the speech because most of it was delivered with such a high pitched shrill call that it passed beyond the hearing of human ears. It really did. Outside no doubt the dogs were barking and they were certainly barking inside. I will not rush to Kate Wilkinson’s defence. Kate is a fine person. She is in the next office to mine—I rent her one of my little offices—and she is a fine person. She is well capable of looking after her own reputation on which I thought that member tried to make a somewhat nasty attack. But I am not here to entertain the masses although the previous speaker runs quite an amusing select committee. It has had such outstanding achievements as the Electoral Finance Bill. Well that was a beauty and now it has another one which I cannot talk about because it has not yet been reported back. 
Lynne Pillay 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I know that this is a broad debate but the member is talking about the Electoral Finance Act and this debate is about the Budget. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: It is a very broad debate but I think the comment was made in passing. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. As you noted so wisely it was just a passing remark. But I will try not to introduce too many deviations because it is indeed the Budget that I wish to speak about. I called last year’s Budget a sad Budget. It was a bad Budget. It was an “ever been had?” Budget. This year the Budget is sad it is bad and touches of it are mad. It is an “ever been had?” Budget but it is also a “more than a tad” Budget. It is more than a tad too little and more than a tad too late. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: He’s the tad cad. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Well it was a caddish Budget. But that was the comment from the Minister of Health not from me. He called it a caddish Budget. I would not do that because it would reflect on Dr Cullen. 
The Budget began with a lament and all good Scottish Celts know what effect a lament has on people. It is a sadness; it is a keening from the inside of the heart. How did Dr Cullen begin? He said: “Oh dear! Oh dear! It’s such a sad time because everything that is squeezing the purses and the wallets of the good citizens of New Zealand is beyond the Government’s control.” He nearly added “So there!”. It reminded me very much of  
Chaucer’s Complaint to his Purse 
 the final verse of which is: 
And you that have the power  
all our troubles to correct  
have consideration upon my supplication.  
That is the modern English version. Dr Cullen put this Budget forward as a sort of supplication a nostalgic cry for the days of huge surpluses when the arithmetic was easy. But this time there is $44 billion and I wonder how much of that has been spent on the West Coast and Tasman districts. Very very little! Yet the Government has been talking for so long about very little unemployment and huge development on the Coast. I heard the previous speaker Lynne Pillay talk about the jobs created under Labour and the wealth created under Labour but none of that was as a consequence of the Government’s actions. I was challenged by that member and again as a good tartan-blooded person I never refuse a challenge to say one thing that National believes in. All I have to do is echo the sentiments of Dr Cullen. Everybody heard them. He gave them an apostolic a tremendous—what is the word when someone speaks from the heart— 
Tim Groser 
: Cri de cœur! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: —cri de cœur! He said: “John Key believes in tax cuts.” Do members remember him saying that? He said that John Key believes in tax cuts. Let us put that to the test. We do believe in tax cuts. Let us ask the people of the National Party. We know John Key. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Do you believe in early childhood education? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: The previous speaker asked for the one thing we believed in. She is getting it; could she please let me give it to her without interruption because she will learn from it. Members can help me with this: do the National Party and John Key believe in tax cuts? 
Hon Members 
: We believe! Yes! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: We believe in tax cuts. Righto! We know John Key; we know ourselves. Let us ask: do the Labour Party and Dr Cullen believe in tax cuts? 
Lynne Pillay 
: We believe! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Let us try it again! Do the Labour Party and Dr Cullen believe in tax cuts? 
Lynne Pillay 
: We’ve done it! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Ha ha! Labour has “done it” with a touch of regret. My colleague Tim Groser used a delightful expression; he said: “Dr Cullen gave voice to the tax cuts through gritted clenched teeth.” Not only that I think it was Churchill who said that in victory we should be magnanimous and in defeat defiant. Why is Labour being so defiant about its Budget? National is being magnanimous about it. National is voting for it. We are voting for the tax cut bits yet Labour has been defiant throughout the whole presentation of the Budget debate. So National believes in tax cuts. I do not doubt that the previous speaker will want to take another call to thank me for giving her that piece. 
We asked whether Labour really supports tax cuts and a plaintive voice said yes—“We believe!”. Well that will really thrill the punters out there who are trying to pay for food petrol and everything else that Dr Cullen tells us is beyond his control. I understood that Budgets were to exercise control of otherwise uncontrollable forces. Surely that is what we have Governments for. Otherwise we would not need Governments regulations and laws. We have to have an intercession and that is why we have Budgets. 
But it is a bad Budget because it gives in. There is no great boost for production or aspirational leadership and it was ill-intentioned in its purpose to try to prevent a new Government from using initiatives and opportunities to boost the country’s economy. Again I call on my very literary friend Tim Groser who described the Budget as a “poisoned well”. Has Dr Cullen poisoned the well? Has he had a cut and burn? Has he left anything in? This Budget lacks a goal. I think it was New Zealand First members who raised the prospect albeit belatedly in their speeches that perhaps the Budget should have included something to encourage export growth. 
Labour members keep asking: “How are you going to pay for things?”. Perhaps we could earn some money. Earning money is quite a good idea but there are difficulties associated with it. Let me paint a little scenario that will be old hat to the Minister responsible for the Pacific I am sure. I used to deal in the Pacific. For 15 years I travelled the Pacific countries working for the New Zealand Dairy Board and I loved it. I was given the job of forming a company and increasing sales. So we formed a company. We corrected the discrepancies in stock control. We got our stock control and our logistics right. We started meeting the ships properly. The customers got what they wanted when they ordered it and at the price agreed—the three basic elements. Then the directors said: “Increase the sales.” So I said: “By how much?”. They said: “Double them.”—we were earning $17 million a year as long as a little bit of milk-powder was included that actually went to Australia—so we said “OK.” and we had a look at the market. 
In those days the usual way to increase sales was to increase marketing increase advertising and reduce prices. But we had a look at the market and saw that most markets in the Pacific had controlled margins. Therefore every time prices were reduced people’s incomes were reduced. So we increased prices and the people responsible for importing our goods started to get wealthier. They stopped buying Australian products and started to concentrate on New Zealand products and in 4 years our earnings went from $17 million to $34 million. In the last few days I have reflected on whether Dr Cullen would have approved of that had he been the chairman of our company. He would have said “No!” because other people were going to get wealthy out of our activities. But we have to make sure that other people will get wealthy otherwise why would they bother? 
That brings me to my last point which is the railways episode. Was this a “Have you ever been had?” Budget? I sincerely hope not. New Zealand railways are incredibly important to the West Coast. We have $660 million worth of coal and $96 million worth of gold brought out by train—even though last May I think it was Dr Cullen said that we have no mineral wealth in New Zealand. The only way out of the Coast is by rail. I am an enthusiast for rail. I modernised and renovated the Moana railway station with my wife. We love rail and I hope that this purchase of rail by the Government is not going to be an ideological purchase. My great fear is that the purchase arose simply from the Government’s inability to complete a negotiation with Toll Holdings. How is money made from a railway? It is made by having control at both ends. Toll Holdings is already the largest road carrier in New Zealand. It has always made money from the railway at each end. It has now just been able to lose the other bit and we hope the new Labour Government will not lose the railway. 
I shall finish with a quote which to me typifies Dr Cullen’s betrayal. It comes from the great protector Oliver Cromwell who wrote of himself—and I think Dr Cullen could use this quote after the Budget—“I need pity. I know what I feel. Great place and business in the world is not worth looking after.” And to continue with Cromwell and to address Labour I also quote: “you have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God go!”