Cullen Michael: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Cullen Michael: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11052] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill be now read a second time 
. This debate marks the final passage of the 2007 Budget. Let us remember what the key features of that Budget were. The first feature was KiwiSaver. There was a massive addition to the KiwiSaver scheme that means when we next release some data at the end of this month when we will have the small employer returns I am absolutely certain we will have 100000 people enrolled into the KiwiSaver scheme. The National Party opposite which cannot make up its mind looks like it might be facing half a million KiwiSavers by the time of the next election—no wonder those members have three fingers up in the wind already on that issue. 
The second feature was business tax cuts with a cut in the corporate tax rate. Mr English attacked that as profligate spending because he includes the cost of the business tax cuts in his description of the 2007 Budget. I would ask whether National members will continue to vote against those business tax cuts as they did on Budget night. 
 Thirdly there was the introduction of research and development tax credits. This measure is seeing interest coming from offshore particularly from Australia about shifting research and development into New Zealand and it is extremely strongly supported within the New Zealand business community. 
Fourthly there have been tax cuts on savings with the portfolio investment entity regime and a cut in effect on widely held savings vehicles to a maximum tax rate of 30 percent. This will be followed up by the new offshore tax regime with the introduction of an active/passive distinction and the legislation on limited partnerships which may begin its first reading later this evening. 
That is a massive series of measures about the improvement of this country’s economy about taxation reductions and about addressing the real issues of how to lift New Zealand savings over the long term in order to make us more self-reliant to lower our long-term costs of capital and to change the nature of our economic relationship with the rest of the world. In the meantime the good news continues to flow forth. 
Just last week the new employment figures showed 362000 new jobs under this Government with the highest participation rate in the labour force in New Zealand’s history at 68.8 percent. We have a massively reduced unemployment rate compared with the situation under the previous National Government particularly amongst Maori where the rate has gone down from 18.6 percent to 7.6 percent under this Government. Not a single region of this country has an unemployment rate of over 5 percent with Southland leading the way in that particular regard. 
Secondly the dollar is starting to correct and has fallen some 10 percent since the peak that it reached just a few weeks ago. Thirdly despite all the gloom and doom the latest numbers actually show that exports have grown strongly over the last year which was one of the best years we have seen for export growth in a very very long period of time. 
And what does the main Opposition party National offer in distinction from that? It offers confusion and contradictions; it offers denial and deceit. That is all National can offer in opposition to the Government’s programmes in these areas. 
Let us first of all deal with that dollar issue. When the dollar started coming back down from that peak of 81-odd cents Mr Key proudly forecasted that it would go back up to 83c. 
Hon Member 
: Oh that’s really helpful. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That was very helpful for exporters. That showed just whose side he was on in terms of the great economic debate. Mr Key was asked whether he had ever speculated against the New Zealand dollar when he was a money changer in the temples of financial industry around the world and he refused to answer that question. Here is a man who wants to be Prime Minister and thinks he has some divine right to become Prime Minister. He will not even tell us whether he speculated. Of course it would not matter whether he did tell us—we would not believe the answer anyway if we are to go by his position on the next issue. 
Mr Key will not like this issue because he does want us going back to the issues that he does not like talking about but we will talk again about this member and his views on the war in Iraq. We will talk about that because in February 2003 he said he would be prepared to commit any support requested by the US for a war against Iraq including SAS and combat troops. He said that New Zealand should be prepared to fight for the values we believe in. That is what he said. 
Then in July this year Mr Key said: “We made it quite clear we will not be going. We would not have sent troops to Iraq.” When he was asked how he could square that with his saying in 2003 that he would have sent troops he said: “Oh well the caucus position in 2003”—and he nods his head—“was that we would send troops and I was faithfully repeating the caucus position.” But only 2 months earlier in May of this year he said that National would never have supported sending troops to Iraq and that his caucus did not support sending troops to Iraq. Which one of all that extraordinary mishmash of different views is the correct one? Mr Key made another attempt on 10 August to explain his views. [ 
Interruption 
] The members opposite do not want to listen to this. On 10 August Mr Key said: “Oh well the position was this. Look National supported the coalition of the willing’s right to engage in the war in Iraq. Um we believed the war was legal. It is a very technical debate but it revolves around a sort of UN resolution”—a sort of UN resolution—“which says if you believe you are attacked you can retaliate and that was really the argument the Americans put up around 9/11 but also a whole lot of funding of terrorism and various other things and of course the weapons of mass destruction.” So this member is saying—if members can work out what on earth that stream of semi-consciousness means—that he believes there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Not even Karl Rove believes any longer that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 
John Key believes that the Iraqis were funding terrorism against the United States and what is more he believes that Iraq was attacking the United States. He believes that Iraq was attacking the United States so a war was all right. These words are not from 2003. This is not when Mr Key was in his own words the most junior member of the National caucus but this was only a few days ago. And he was not the most junior caucus member then actually; Maurice Williamson was at the time. But never mind he got that wrong as well. 
After all the previous mistakes after the chance to sort out his story he still did not have a storyline that makes any coherent sense at all. This man opens his mouth and hopes that something will come forth that makes some kind of sense. 
Let me ask something else about Mr Key. How come he is the only person I have ever met in my life who can remember not opening an email? And what is the email he remembers not opening? It was the one from the Exclusive Brethren. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The level of interruption is just too much at the moment. The members know that. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Mr Key is the only person who can remember not opening an email yet he knows what was in the email he can remember not opening. That is a remarkable achievement—a remarkable achievement for a hollow man in particular. 
Then of course Mr Key’s colleague to his right might care to answer the question of just who is being referred to in the article on the front page of Sunday’s  
Sunday Star-Times  
about the person very much closer to the leadership of the National Party who is responsible for certain leaks. Mr English might care to make it very clear whether he had anything to do with that matter because that story made it clear that it was not in fact anyone from the Labour Party. 
Then we have Mr Key on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change. He is a man who has “always been a believer” but only a year previously he had said: “I actually do not believe in climate change. I am very sceptical about climate change. I am somewhat suspicious of climate change.” He then claimed that he firmly believed in climate change and always had. 
You see Mr Key is a man who says anything to anybody and does not think anybody will compare what is said one time with what is said another time. He is a man whom one cannot believe because he cannot actually have a coherent policy a coherent storyline or a coherent story from one day to the next from one month to the next and from one year to the next. That is not a man that New Zealand in the end will vote for at the next election.