Foss Craig: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
Foss Craig: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
[Volume:664;Page:11893] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 If I were a Labour list MP and if I were on the middle backbenches I would be very very worried because what we just heard was a member Mr Mallard going back to the default position of muckraking and being down in the gutter. That is exactly why Labour plummeted from having 9 years of power to being in Opposition now. 
Recent polls like the one the other night show exactly why Labour members polled so badly at the last election. They had their officials going through old documents mucking around in the gutter trying to interpret things the wrong way round and spending taxpayers’ funds along the way. They tried to dig up dirt on good members of this House and people who were members of this House. 
I would be very very worried if I were a Labour member. Even before that speech Labour members should have been worried. If one of the younger Labour MPs saw and heard what we just witnessed for the last 20 minutes he or she should be very very worried. I see about five list MPs on the other side of the House and every single one of them is in dire straits. 
When the public realise that some of their front-bench members are back at their default position they should be very very concerned indeed. New Zealanders are tired of that kind of rhetoric. They are disgusted by it. They have no interest in it and recent events do not reflect very well on some of the more let us say pleasant members on the other side of the House. I am personally quite affronted by it. There are avenues one can take to investigate the matters the previous speaker was suggesting. Those avenues are open to every member and it is interesting that that particular member chose not to follow them. 
A few weeks ago the Hon Pete Hodgson had a go at our Prime Minister John Key about trusts. It was all rubbish it was all a facade and it was all chucking mud. But the best thing about it was that when he realised he was wrong he announced he would not be standing for Parliament again. Perhaps that has set a precedent for Mr Mallard given what he has been going on about. I apologise for having to address that issue for the last few minutes but it cannot go unaddressed. I repeat that if I were a newer Labour member or even one of the members who have been here for a while I would be very very concerned. The 30 percent poll rating those members saw on TV3 the other night has just gone below 30 percent. 
I turn to the supplementary estimates and imprest supply debate. National inherited quite a shambles. We released the Budget almost a month ago on 20 May. It was the Budget we would like to have produced in 2009 but the global recession that was hitting New Zealand’s shores compounded the recession that the previous administration had taken New Zealand into about 1 year before the rest of the world. That has made the job very very hard. The decade of deficits was a mountain in front of us. There was rampant out of control unaccountable non-responsive unmeasured and non-transparent spending. It was just out of control. There were underlying assumptions of continuing exponentially compounding growth in taxation revenue and therefore spending by the public sector. The finance Minister in his speech earlier noted some of the facts around that. Anyone can remember it. Mr Cunliffe made a speech earlier which was proof positive that the fiscal fairies are alive and well on the other side of the Chamber. The fiscal fairies are at the bottom of the Labour garden or perhaps in the gutter with some of its members as we have just heard. 
The Budget has to try to address and has addressed some of the concerns and issues around KiwiRail. I will come back to asset management in a moment. I think KiwiRail owes the taxpayer about $1 billion at the moment or maybe just shy of that amount. It is actually valued at something like $300 million I think. The previous owners have done very very well indeed out of the New Zealand taxpayer. It may seem old news but the bottom line is that $700 million has been totally written off. It is not available for new hospitals not available for schools not available for roads and not available for energy. Of course there was an announcement in the Budget of $250 million of capital going into KiwiRail to try to fix up what was totally and hopelessly broken when the previous finance Minister totally overpaid for it. If members are wondering how the poor taxpayer was taken for a ride I understand that the previous administration whilst in negotiations for KiwiRail called the owners to ask for the loan of a locomotive so that it could paint it in KiwiRail’s colours in order to have a press announcement. Meanwhile in the other room negotiations were going on and funnily enough the price suddenly went up. 
The Opposition spokesperson on finance spoke about the need to export. I am quite intrigued by this report in the  
Manawatu Standard.  
I recently featured in that newspaper. I went to the Manawatu recently and spoke to a paying audience of about 35 to 40 people. I think they paid about $25 to $30 each to cover costs. The local member representing the Manawatu had a bit of a go at me about it. He swore black and blue that Mr Cunliffe would be back but he would not be charging anybody to hear him. We noted that people get what they pay for. And it was of no surprise to anybody else; no one would expect to pay to hear Mr Cunliffe speak about the Budget. 
Mr Cunliffe spoke to 25 people in Palmerston North. The headline in the  
Manawatu Standard 
 read: “Labour offers fresh reprieve to GST hike”. How is that going to happen? He said that defining fresh fruit and vegetables will be relatively easy. Apparently Labour would exempt fresh fruit and vegetables from GST. Labour had 9 years to do that. When Labour installed GST at 10 percent or increased it from 10 percent to 12.5 percent it never once mentioned thought about or publicly proclaimed that it would exempt fresh fruit and vegetables from GST. Mr Cunliffe said and this is where I agree with him the New Zealand economy “suffered”—he used the past tense not the present tense—from a toxic cocktail: “we don’t export enough we don’t innovate enough we don’t save enough.” Well hello the solution after 9 years is that we do not export enough. 
Does anyone remember Export Year? That was the solution. Talk about it make some badges and put out some pamphlets. Does anyone remember Export Year? Actually exports plummeted. The finance Minister shared with us in his earlier speech that the export sector the real sector of the economy the part of the economy that creates jobs creates wages and keeps families in their homes with their mortgages has been in recession since 2005—in recession since 2005. Quite how that stayed under the radar for about 3-ish years I really do not know. I find it somewhat surprising. Now this Budget is trying to address that to rebalance the economy to rebalance our export incentives to real incentives using the levers of taxation and better cash flow of investment and improving access to credit. The previous speaker said that there was nothing in the Budget about credit. Actually the 2009 Budget he was talking about at the time got New Zealand a global credit rating upgrade. When we owe the rest of the world about $180 billion it is pretty important to try to keep those rates as totally low as possible. 
An earlier speaker also talked about solutions. Labour will have a look at monetary policy. Labour seems to forget that in the last Parliament initiated by the previous finance Minister there was an inquiry into monetary policy at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I am quite surprised that those people over there who have read lots of books about the economy but not necessarily partaken in the economy know better than the learned people with many years of experience from across the spectrum who came before the Finance and Expenditure Committee and said: “Hey it’s the best we’ve got right now. We think it’s doing a pretty good job.” Not many of them seem to have read the price targets agreement which we noted the other day during a public session at the select committee. 
One final thing as the Hon Peter Dunne alluded to from the article in the  
Manawatu Standard 
 it looks like Labour would bring in a capital gains tax. It looks like Labour would campaign on a capital gains tax. Well OK let Labour members go out there and do that but they should note that the value of everyone’s property has fallen by about 10 to 20 percent or even 30 percent over the last few years of the global recession. Labour will campaign on taxing the catch-up in people’s properties. It would put on a capital gains tax when all that people are doing is try to catch up in terms of where their valuation has been over the last few years. I am looking forward to Labour campaigning on apparently axing the GST rise—but I do not know where the “Axe the Tax” bus has gone—bringing in a capital gains tax and raising income tax levels to higher than they were prior to this Budget. Thank you.