Cosgrove Clayton: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12898. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I too want to pick up where my colleague David Parker left off. Looking at Part 1 in clause 4 new paragraph (e) of section 26G(1) of the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill the other interesting thing here of course is that it says: “when formulating revenue strategy having regard to efficiency and fairness including the predictability and stability of tax rates;”. Well again as Mr Parker said is this Government so bereft that it needs a piece of legislation to ensure that it achieves fairness? It may well be that it does given that in the so-called tax switch we know that the top 10 percent of income earners got a massive 40 percent of that tax switch and the bottom 20 percent got 2 percent. So maybe it actually is important that there is a clause in here that reminds this Government that formulating revenue strategy should have fairness should be predictable should have stability of tax rates and should be fair. I am glad the word “fairness” is included in this because of course nowhere in the Government’s tax cuts has there been any fairness.I have got to say coming from Christchurch that the ludicrous idiotic proposal that was originally in this bill—the henchman from Epsom “Brown Bag Banks” trebled expenditure in his time as Mayor of Auckland City as my colleague David Parker said and the biographer Mr Goldsmith who wrote the book about the great man Mr Banks is over there. Mr Banks trebled expenditure in his time as Mayor of Auckland City yet comes to this Committee trying to gain some credibility before his problem with Dotcom and demands a spending cap which is then torpedoed by the other sort of termite-ridden leg of the stool Mr Dunne—who of course has no credibility either—who actually to be fair to him realised that that was a load of bunkum and completely unworkable. You know we had a thing called an earthquake in Christchurch. If you have a spending cap what happens there with a natural disaster? It just shows that this Government is reliant on two rotten piles—rotten piles—in the form of Mr Banks and in the form of Mr Dunne and it plays them off against each other like Tweedledumb andTweedledumber to try to navigate through what it needs.This bill is simply a political pamphlet. If a Government needs a piece of legislation that says it is to ensure the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently if it really needs a piece of legislation to tell it to do that then something is wrong. But as I say I am pleased that the word “fairness” is in clause 4 new paragraph (e) because those tax cuts were not fair. The GST that the Government put up which it said it would not was not fair to people. So it is good that at least one clause pulls on the small pangs of conscience that one or two of these Government members may have from time to time as they put through their polices that as we know benefit the top end of the street—the “Parnellites” Mr Goldsmith’s people of course—with the top 10 percent getting 40 percent of the tax cuts.Well I do not know. Will that contravene this law that talks about fairness? Because of course the Government defines fairness as that—where the bottom 20 percent gets 2 percent. It is utterly meaningless. If it does not know what fairness is and what inequity is then it should not be there. But oh the top end the one from the North Shore the one from Epsom and Banks’ biographer think—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I said: “Banks’ biographer”. I do not know what you thought I said. I would not go that low—Banks’ biographer. They think that is fair. They think that is fair in a taxation sense.So really this is another John Banks special. This is political piffle. This is like writing down: “I should be a nice person. I should make sure I send Mum a birthday card and a Mother’s Day card. I need to be reminded of these basic human things.” This is piffle. This is political posturing and even Mr Goldsmith should be ashamed of this sort of stuff. We are wasting Parliament’s time on this. If that member and that Minister need a piece of legislation to say that they should manage the Crown accounts effectively and efficiently then they have got a problem. They have got an absolute serious problem. It would be nice if they did manage them effectively and efficiently as we did when we had 9 years’ worth of surpluses and zero—zero—Crown debt. We had zero net Crown debt—zero. That is called managing effectively and efficiently and we did not need a piece of paper—as the Minister scowls at me—that said: “Dr Cullen you need to manage the Crown accounts effectively and efficiently.” We just did it because it is the right thing to do.