Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Volume:653;Page:2302] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Normally when one challenges an Opposition one at least looks the members in the eyes. One raises one’s head and one’s sights and one eyeballs them rather than having one’s chin in one’s lap and looking like a crash helmet on legs. The reason that bloke is called “Re-Joyce” is that he is so glum about governing. He wants a suggestion for improving productivity so I will give him one. National should adopt Labour’s broadband plan. That will save at least half a billion dollars and get more broadband in the ground. That would be a good start. 
Today is April Fool’s Day and Mr Key has gone back to his office to kick the butts of the staff who got him to try that silly question about Twitter. Not only have I never posted a tweet but that Minister obviously was not informed that the same person who set up a bogus site for me has also done so for three other Labour members. At least as early as Monday of this week a notice posted on Twitter made it clear that the site was false. But wait; there is more! It turns out that the person who set up these four bogus sites is actually a right-wing blogger. 
Why would someone not have told Mr Key that one of his own whanau was responsible for this gimmick? Was that person trying to make Mr Key look like a tweet on April Fool’s Day or does it come naturally? Perhaps he or she was trying to take attention away from the great “Robin Hood in reverse” tax swindle. That is where one borrows a billion dollars and gives a third of it to the top 3 percent of income earners. Even Roger Douglas can tell that it is nonsense to borrow a billion dollars give a third to the top 3 percent and ensure that 71 percent get nothing—nada zip no income tax cut. Seventy-one percent of Kiwis get nothing 3 percent get a third—and it is borrowed money. 
That is why John Key has been on radio and TV in the last week saying: “Well you know those tax cuts next year—we’ve really got to try to be clear that the conditions will allow it.” That is why Mr English was talking them down in the media. That is why Ganesh Nana from the Business and Economic Research Ltd said today that he does not think it will happen. That is why the press gallery knows full well it will never happen. 
What does that mean for New Zealanders? It means that almost all the people underneath that blessed top 3 percent will be worse off under this Government than they would have been if a Labour Government had enacted the legislation it had set out in Budget 2008. It is not just the 71 percent who miss out today—April Fool’s Day—with these April Fool’s Day tax cuts; it is almost everybody outside the top table and outside the big end of town. It is payback time for the donors to the National Party who insisted on the top personal tax rate being cut. 
As well as being grossly inequitable and highly unprincipled that is really stupid economics because—and I point this out in case someone did not explain it to the Prime Minister—we are in a recession. What do people do in a recession? People spend money in such a way that it stays in circulation. One has the highest possible multiplier and that does not come from the people at the high end of the income scale. It comes from the people at the lower end of the income scale because they need it. They are credit constrained and whatever relief they get they spend. They spend it at the corner dairy they spend it at the supermarket they put a new tyre on the car they pay the school donation for their children they buy their children books or they take their kids to the doctor—if they do not qualify for the free stuff that Labour has already put in place. 
Families need it and that is why Labour put in place the Working for Families package and that is why members opposite have done a political gimmick which even the Minister of Revenue disagrees with with the independent earner tax credit. That is a $10 a week gimmick that is available to people who do not have kids and it is meant to make them feel a bit better. But the people with children are the ones who are shelling out for so many of the necessaries. People at the bottom end are suffering.