Cunliffe David: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Cunliffe David: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18993] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 It is incumbent on us at this stage of the debate as we review the title and commencement of the bill to try to find a phrase or a word that most aptly encompasses the real meaning of the bill for New Zealanders. Though I am never a believer that politicians should be driven by the media it just so happens that the media have been helpful to us on this occasion so I thought I might bring forward to the Committee some titles that have been suggested by the ladies and gentlemen of the press. How about the “Taxation (Fairytale of High Hopes on a Frayed Thread) Bill” courtesy of the  
New Zealand Herald 
? 
That is not a bad start. How about the “Annual Rates (Budget Lacks Job Creation Plan) Bill” courtesy of the  
National Business Review 
 I believe? How about the “Annual Rates (Budget Hopes Rest on Shaky Foundations) Bill” from the editorial in the  
New Zealand Herald 
? 
Sue Moroney 
: Ouch! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Ouch! Or from the  
Dominion Post 
 we have 
“Budget 2011: Battlers Asked to Give Back Bill”. Or again from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 how about 
the 
“Shaky Quakey Budget Bill”? 
Sue Moroney 
: Ouch! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The “Shaky Quakey Budget Bill”. It seems that the ladies and gentlemen of the press might have cottoned on to the fact that a few of the assumptions or a few of the fiscals upon which these tax rates stand might be just a little bit exaggerated. That might have something to do with the fact that Standard and Poor’s no less today announced to the world that they are not removing New Zealand from negative credit watch. Why? It is because they do not believe the numbers either. They do not believe the numbers any more than the editorial writer of the  
New Zealand Herald  
who said: “This is a bunch of old codswallop.” Now everyone is scratching their head and wondering what happened at No. 1 The Terrace that this pile of rubbish got printed. 
But there is more. How about these headlines in respect of the KiwiSaver components: the “Taxation (Pay More to Save the Same) Bill” or the “Tax Credit Reduction Takes all the Gloss off Savings Bill” or the “Experts Label KiwiSaver Move a Tax Grab Bill”? Those are a few of the headlines on KiwiSaver. How about these ones for education: the “Student Loans Cuts Discriminatory Bill” the “Loans Cuts for Older Students Attack Bill” the “Booster Doesn’t Cover Inflation Bill” or the “Dog Ate My Early Childhood Education Bill”? They all make a very good set of headlines. 
Kris Faafoi 
: Even the dogs are hungry! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No it is not all bad news colleagues. It would be unfair of us to portray that this is all bad news. There are certain very deserving constituencies that have done extremely well out of the Budget. How about the “Tax Breaks for Rugby Bodies Bill”? That is an excellent cause if ever there was one. We could have the “Do your Bit with the Quake Bond Bill” or how about the “Middle Income Families Pushed Over the Edge Bill” from Stuff’s editorial? This is one of my favourite ones: “The Lack of Courage and Vision Bill” which is something that is of course not a contravention of the Standing Orders because it is not my own opinion; I am merely quoting from a newspaper headline. I will say it again from the  
Dominion Post 
 
the “Lack of Courage and Vision Bill”. Ouch! What about the “Economists Say Surplus Contingent on Recovery Bill”? That was a headline in the  
National Business Review 
 which casts certain aspersions in that direction. 
Sue Moroney 
: Ouch! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Ouch! 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: That must hurt. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It does hurt. When even the  
National Business Review 
 starts kicking holes in a Budget big enough to drive a super-tanker through one knows one has problems. I ask my colleagues why it might be that certain august denizens of the financial sector are themselves beating the crap out of the Government over this bill. Well there may be certain assumptions built into these financials that could be just as they say a little bit shaky quakey. Here are a few of the shaky quakey assumptions. There is a $3.8 billion difference between the revenue forecast from the esteemed gentlemen at No. 1 The Terrace in Treasury and the equally esteemed gentlemen at the Inland Revenue Department who are saying: “No no we do not believe your growth numbers either. We could not possibly collect that much tax. How about $4 billion less?”. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Which one did they take? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Which one does the member think the Government took? Does he think the Government took the more prudent the more fiscally responsible lower numbers? No it took the higher more exaggerated pie-in-the-sky numbers from Treasury. 
What about the “Missing Billion (Dog Ate the Department Concerned) Bill”? There is a billion dollars of supposed savings here—$980 million to be precise—that nobody has the faintest idea where they are coming from. The Government has not even narrowed it down to which department. Is it health is it education or is it superannuation? It has stopped pre-funding that; maybe it will dig back out of it. We do not know because they have not ascribed it. For the first time in New Zealand’s history a Government has been able to get away with an unallocated saving. Do members know what Trevor Mallard a former Associate Minister of Finance in days gone by would have done to a junior Minister who proffered up savings without saying what output class they came from? 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Not pretty. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It would not have been pretty. Mr Mallard’s jaws would have been locked around their ankles and they would have been sent scampering to their office to have another think. But this is worse than that; the Government does not even know which Minister it is. Might it be coming out of Mrs Collins’ next prison? A small dent in the supply of sow crates for prisoners perhaps? Who knows. Might it be the Minister of Agriculture? Might there perhaps be a small reduction in the tax breaks for farmers in future Budgets? Who can tell because we simply do not know. 
There is a billion dollars missing but why did Treasury sign off on this rubbish? That is what is what Standard and Poor’s wants to know. Kyran is going to be back on the hunt for the ladies and gentlemen of Treasury— 
Stuart Nash 
: Is that why Whitehead is leaving do you think? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I do not think that would be the reason; I think it is more likely to be a gutsful of the National Government. But anyway here is the doozy. Here is what the commentators are all really concerned about and it is not the missing billion dollars; it is not the $3.8 billion. A taxi driver said to me on the way to a meeting this morning: “Are they really going to create 177000 new jobs? How?”. I said: “No and no one knows.” They have no idea because there has been a misprint in this book the Executive Summary for the Budget documents. There is a whole chapter missing in every one of the ones that has been printed sadly. It is the chapter on growth strategy. It is the economic development chapter. It has just gone mysteriously from every single volume. There is no growth plan.  
But 177000 new jobs are magically produced by the same Hollywood pixies. Do members know what members on this side of the Chamber think it is? We think that perhaps this title should be the “Warner Bros Wrote the Budget Bill” because it might be a little fringe benefit for the Hobbit-helpers over there. The Hobbit-helpers got Warner Bros to write the Budget because it is a work that belongs in the fiction department of the library not the non-fiction department. 
I will return to the title of the bill. The title could be any one of the headlines in editorials that we have read out for the delight of you Mr Chairperson and for the public’s delight this morning. When the bubbly from the seventh floor of the Beehive ran out late last night and the hangover set in this morning one could see that the Budget was a bit like the “beer-goggles Budget”: she looked great last night but when one wakes up in the morning one sees that all it is is a blue hump of cardboard with rubber numbers in it. Go figure. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Just add a little bit more detail to that. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I thank Mr Woodhouse. How long did the member stay at the Minister of Finance’s party last night? That is what we want to know. 
I can tell members that when I was doing the rounds of the press gallery this morning as part of my constitutional duty to spread the good word the journalists were none too impressed because they had started reading the document and like us they were wondering how the numbers add up. I say to the Government that whatever it calls the Budget and perhaps it should be called the “Lipstick on the Pig Bill” it does not matter what colour of lipstick the Government puts on it at the end of the day it is still a pig.