Cunliffe David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17729. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to thePrime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “In the end we need to get the unemployment rate down”; if so why is unemployment still at 6 percent five years after the recession?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes; we are actually 3 years out of recession and the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 7.2 percent to the current 6 percent. The labour market is definitely strengthening. The number of peoplewith a job increased by 84000 last year which was the strongest employment growth in a decade. Currently 69.3 percent of people aged 15 and over are in the labour force which is the highest participation rate since the household labour force survey began in 1986. As I said yesterday Budget forecasts will show the unemployment rate dropping to 4.5 percent by the end of 2017.Hon David Cunliffe: Given that answer and despite the only 8000 jobs added the year before why will his Government not work harder and match Labour’s commitment to reducing unemployment to 4 percent—4 percent—by 2017 or is he and his Government no longer ambitious for New Zealand?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I can see an insight into the personality of the Leader of the Opposition which is that clearly he writes to Santa and still hopes for the Easter bunny.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I ask the Prime Minister to refer to Speaker’s ruling 176/3 where it says that starting an answer to a question with a political attack will lead to further disorder in the House.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition came out with a wish—a wish that unemployment was lower. It was not a policy not a plan but a wish. So I say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he wanted to join and support National with the reforms to employment law that we have undertaken if he wanted to support the Government on oil and gas exploration if he wanted to support the making ofThe Hobbit movies in New Zealand if he wanted to support the speeding up of the Resource Management Act if he wanted to support the capping of the public sector administration and if he wanted to support the special housing accords—all of those things—then I might take his wish seriously. Otherwise he should stick to Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.Hon David Cunliffe: Why does the wannabe All Black not put 4 percent unemployment on his wish list when Labour achieved 3.9 percent on average over 5 years when last in office; I ask him again—has he given up being ambitious for New Zealanders?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is one thing to have a pipedream it is another thing to have a plan. The Government has a plan for New Zealand which is working.Hon Members: What plan?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I know that the members get a little bit excited but a wish does not make a plan and never will.Hon David Cunliffe: Why will the Prime Minister not show us the plan when there are still 31000 more people unemployed today than were forecast in his own 2011 Budget which was of course handed down after the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am more than happy to table the Business Growth Agenda which has—how many points—350 individual points. The second point I would make is there are more people in employment in New Zealand today than ever in the history of this country and thirdly every time the Government comes up with a proposal to help people in work it is rejected. Yesterday the Labour Party did not come up with an alternative Budget. It came up with a wish list of two things. Labour hopes the surplus will be lower and it hopes the unemployment rate will be lower. Well there are a whole lot of people who hope David Cunliffe will no longer be—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order!Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Hon David Cunliffe: The Prime Minister has no responsibility for Labour Party policy however he may wish he had a plan like it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The difficulty I have with that point of order is that in an earlier supplementary question the member himself brought in the Labour Party’s plan of action.Hon David Cunliffe: What use is his glossy Business Growth Agenda when unemployment is still 50 percent—five-zero percent—above pre-recession levels when other developed countries like Germany and Japan now have unemployment lower than it was 6 years ago when he and his unambitious Government took office?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It may come as a great shock to the member but there has been a recession which we actually inherited from Labour a mess in terms of the spending we inherited from Labour and the global financial crisis not to mention Christchurch. Again if the member wants to just imagine things he should keep going. But if he wants to be taken seriously on economic policy and have that debate during the campaign he is going to have to trot along to Television One with a lot more than a wish list.Hon David Cunliffe: Which of the following best describes the so-called mess he inherited from the last Labour Government: was it “net debt equals zero” was it “the lowest unemployment rate in the Western World” was it “some of the lowest inequality since his previous Government took office” or in fact is the $60 billion that he slapped on the country’s credit card his responsibility and his responsibility alone?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the member wants to look at responsibility for a lot of that debt he should just pick up a mirror because in reality the Government inherited a whole bunch of programmes and expenditure that were either poorly targeted or unaffordable. The member just needs to go and look at the record. For the last 5 years of that Labour Government it increased expenditure by between $2.7 billion and $3 billion a year. The simple facts of life are that more people are in employment in New Zealand than ever before and the Labour Opposition is opposed to every pro-growth initiative that is out there.