Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3234] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 As the Associate Minister of Finance I am proud to stand beside Michael Cullen on this Budget. I am very proud of it. I make an observation about Dr Lockwood Smith a former senior member of the National Party. Only three senior members were sitting beside him to listen to that speech. The rest of the members were from the D-team—the new boys and girls. That is the stature in which he is held. 
Dr Smith talked about the Government investing in chippies. I agree with him. I can report today that we are indeed investing in chippies and plumbers and electricians—all those people. We are putting more money into the apprenticeships that Dr Smith destroyed. This Government is backing 14000 young people into apprenticeships—yes that includes chippies sparkies and plumbers. Dr Lockwood Smith led the charge in the 1990s and deliberately destroyed apprenticeships. Well I am sorry but we put them back we increased them and we will increase them again. 
 Just for a quick second I have to address a couple of things Rodney Hide said. Members will know that I used to get at Rodney Hide now and again. But now old twinkletoes has found his calling in life he ain’t worth even having a go at. I say that Krystal would have made a better speech than the limbo dancer Rodney Hide. I say that he should stick to the elevated heels and the shorts. He looked a bit like the Michelin man. He should stick to that. 
I turn to National members and say that after the speech made by Don Brash the body bags are out. The old grey warbler warbled for the last time. I recall a Prime Minister—I think it was David Lange—who in a debate leaned across and said to an American student that he could smell the uranium on his breath. I lean across and say to Dr Brash today—I cannot do it as well as David Lange did; I wish I could—that everybody on this side of the House can smell the formaldehyde on his breath. All those little young new National MPs who rocked up in the last election to support the walking dead—the corpse that walked—are now thinking that maybe they blew it. They are asking whether Gerry Brownlee is a Key man in this whole leadership thing or whether he is an English man. They do not know. 
Let us look at this Budget. It is about economic transformation. To use a key phrase of a great Australian Prime Minister it is the one that brought home the bacon and the Government is putting the bacon slicer into National members over there. I challenge National members to say which of the Budget commitments they would reverse. Would they reverse apprenticeships? I did not hear them say anything. Would they reverse student loans? I did not hear anything. 
Hon Member 
: We’d give tax cuts. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: National members talk about tax. Let us have a look at tax. As of this year 350000 families— 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Look at us! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I do not want to look at the member; I laugh at him like everybody else. He gave another vein-popping speech. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not know whether he is a doting or a dating MP. 
Three hundred and fifty thousand New Zealand families will get $6 billion worth of targeted tax relief. That means that no one in this House—except maybe one or two—on our large salaries will get a tax break. That is true. But those people with families—350000 of them—will be looked after to the tune of targeted tax relief of $6 billion. National proposed an across-the-board tax cut; that is true. It proposed an $11 billion tax cut. John Key said repeatedly on radio as the old grim reaper Don Brash waddled around the election that half of the cut was based on borrowing. I challenged my opposite number in the election campaign about it. She denied it and then I read the quote out. What would $11 billion of tax cuts have given? It would have given me and Dr Lockwood Smith 95 bucks a week and it would have given most of my constituents $10 a week. If that is the tax policy National members support they are welcome to it but the country rendered its verdict on them. 
I ask members to look at transport. My colleague Mark Gosche said that when Dr Cullen read out the transport stuff Maurice Williamson was nodding. Either the vertebrae at the back of his neck were a bit loose or he agreed with us. I think it was the latter. The National transport policy was going to take 6 years to put all the petrol tax into road funding. The Government has done that in far less time than that. Let us look at the details: excise tax registration road user charges plus $300 million out of general taxation all into public transport and roads. Would National reverse this? I do not hear anything. I do not hear any warbling. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: No we would not reverse it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: No Maurice said that National would not reverse this—good on him. Maurice is the most loyal man in the National Party. The Government has taken 118000 people off the benefit which is a 30 percent reduction in people on a benefit. Would National reverse this? I do not hear anything because National is bereft of policy. The Government has created 313000 jobs since 1999. Would National members reverse this? Yes they would because National’s tax cut policy would be coupled with an expenditure cut so deep that it would do what it did in the 1990s and drive people back on to the dole queues. The Government does not agree with that. 
Would National reverse the assistance to small businesses to get payroll agents so that people running small businesses can get out from behind a desk and back behind the counter to grow their businesses? Would National members reverse this? [ 
Interruption 
] They say they do not know because they have no policy. I say to them that the Government has put more money in education transport and student loans. The student loan scheme is a cracker. During the election campaign National members said that there would be over-subscription for student loans and we would be up to our armpits in debt. But students are not silly people—unlike that mob over there—students are prudent fiscal operators generally. It is undersubscribed. We now find out from the Treasury forecasts that the loan projections are down. Yet again I ask National members—including Maurice Williamson—whether they would reverse it. There is no answer. They are like a possum caught in the headlights ready to be reversed over in the next election. 
National members talk about tax relief. I say to them that there are 350000 families sitting out there today saying the Government’s tax relief is good. They deserve a Government that is willing to back them and to spread the largesse that we get in to where it is needed and where it is targeted. 
I say that this is a fantastic Budget. I say that this is Don Brash’s last gasp. What record of National’s matched our record on reductions of benefit numbers—beneficiaries off benefits and into jobs? What was National’s legacy in the 1990s? We put $23.6 million into well child checks because we know that kids who cannot hear properly are probably unlikely to learn a heck of a lot and go on and be productive citizens and get jobs. Will National reverse this? I do not hear anything from National members. Will they reverse 20 hours a week free childcare for our kids? I ask them to lay it on the table now. The silence is deafening. That sound of silence will be the sound that ushers forth the political coffin and political career of Don Brash on a slow march to the beat of a drum as he is taken out of the door and buried somewhere over the horizon because we know that he is gone. 
Shane Jones 
: Bondi Beach. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Bondi Beach. I used to think the National Party was patriotic. Well National members have demonstrated some patriotism today but not towards New Zealand. The Prime Minister is right—if Australia is so good then they should get on their bikes and go there. I say that I am proud to be a Kiwi. I am proud I was born here. I am not an apologist and I do not have a cultural cringe about our country. But if Don Brash wants to go over and watch Shane Warne play cricket and a few other things he should go over there. If he wants to go over there and drink XXXX and sit on a beach he should go. I can see Don Brash with a knotted handkerchief with the old trousers rolled up in a deckchair on Bondi Beach fending off—no one. He can go there but he should stop running this country down. We in this Parliament are supposed to be in here standing up for our country and standing up for what we believe in. But the old grey warbler got up and said: “How great thou art.” about Australia. Well he should tell that to the 1000 Qantas employees who got bumped into the dole queues of Australia today. He should tell that to the millions of Kiwis who stand up every day and are proud of their country. They are the people who watch their sports teams with pride who go to the schools and volunteer for community services with pride. 
I say to those people that they should not go to a National Party meeting because what they will be doing there is handing out scores for the rugby league in Australia and handing out air tickets for people to go there. Well if that is National’s policy it is welcome to it. I say that I stand for New Zealand. I stand for a progressive Government and a progressive nation that is moving us forward and transforming us and National members stand for nothing.