Foss Craig: General Debate 
Foss Craig: General Debate 
[Volume:631;Page:3155] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 Tomorrow is Budget day. Tomorrow New Zealand’s Bledisloe Cup” for economic growth for well-being and for keeping our best and brightest in the country will be gifted to Australia. The first half of the game came last week: the score was 4-0 to Australia because Australia has had 4 years of tax cuts—$45 billion worth being the most recent announcement. But New Zealanders will get no personal tax cuts whatsoever tomorrow in the Budget. The “Bledisloe Cup” for competitiveness will again be gifted to Australia tomorrow. The World Competitiveness Index saw New Zealand fall in place from No. 16 to No. 22 and Australia move up from No. 9 to No. 6. We are losing to Australia again and again. The “Bledisloe Cup” for tax efficiency and GDP will again be gifted to Australia tomorrow. About 6 years ago Australian after-tax incomes were 20 percent higher than those in New Zealand. Come tomorrow they will be 33 percent higher—and that was before the recent Australian Budget. 
I would like to talk about some numbers. So far $2.6 billion worth of wealth and confidence has been lost since Cabinet started leaking and the Minister of Communications started speaking. For those who have invested in Telecom over the past few months $2.14 per share has been lost. Another number is $200 million which is the amount that was knocked off the wealth of New Zealanders with investments in Telecom because the Minister of Communications decided that he knew best how to run the dividend policy for New Zealand’s largest listed company. 
The Minister of Communications and the Prime Minister just could not help themselves. Every time they opened their mouths decided they knew best and decided to share their business acumen and wide-ranging commercial and real-world experience with the New Zealand public the share price of Telecom dropped another 20c or 30c. There is a great saying in the financial markets that “the trend is your friend”. If the Prime Minister and the Minister had just shut up perhaps New Zealanders would have been able to avoid some of those losses. 
The invoices for Cabinet’s leaks and for Labour’s incompetence and incredible commercial naivety are about to be sent out to New Zealanders. They will arrive over the next few days when broker share statements and valuations are sent to those people who have been trying to save for their retirement and build up nest eggs. Trusts and charities that had been doing the right thing will have to pay about 20 percent of what they thought their Telecom investments were worth because Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking. 
Those numbers—$200 million $2.6 billion—are huge so for those listening on the radio let me bring it down to pretty simple numbers. For someone who had about $1000 worth of Telecom shares a few months ago before Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking those shares are now worth about $800. That is a loss of about $200. For those who had started to build up a bit of a nest egg for retirement and who had about $10000 of Telecom shares a few months ago those shares—after Cabinet started leaking and the Minister started speaking—are now worth $8000 which is a loss of $2000. 
For goodness’ sake we in the Finance and Expenditure Committee have spent the last two meetings talking about KiwiSaver. Well what is the point when the Minister has recently shown such incompetence in absolutely annihilating what good Kiwis have tried to save? Kiwis were just trying to do the right thing; they were just trying to save. 
Let us have a little look at this hall of shame of incompetence and incredible commercial naivety. First of all the Minister apparently dropped a confidential very sensitive Cabinet paper behind a photocopier and it ended up in a smoko room. Well let us think that through for a moment. It also begs the question once we finally deal with this issue of what other confidential papers may be lurking behind unsuspecting photocopy machines around the Cabinet Office. Adding to our list after the Minister leaked he held a press conference and gave the press a statement that fessed up a little bit. But it showed his incredible naivety. He is totally oblivious of how the financial markets work. He said that the New Zealand market was closed—quite correct—but that the Australian market was still open. Australians were still trading Telecom shares! The list of shame gets longer by the day.