Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Cosgrove Clayton: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1587] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 That was for those who may not have known it the leader of the once-great National Party. That was the leader who leads a National Party whose only tactic is not to stand by our country and our economy not to put up policy or ideas not to propose as we do how to do things better and not to continue as we have for the last 6 years to continually transform and enhance our economy. No the only tactic and the only idea that that member—the once-great Governor of the Reserve Bank—now has is to run the economy down. The only tactic that the National Party has—and it is interesting that the member is moving about—is to desperately pray for rain and to desperately pray that the economy will fly to pieces that people will lose their jobs and that the country will go to hell in a handbasket. I do not call that a tactic based on patriotism. There is another word for it but we will not go there. 
Dr Brash the doom merchant has been criticised by one Ralph Waters. It is very interesting what people out at the coalface like Mr Waters the chief executive of Fletcher Building say. They are out there doing the business not pontificating from the ivory tower that Dr Brash spent years in. Here is what Ralph Waters said about a speech that Dr Brash made on 31 January this year in which he poured doom and gloom on the economy and basically said we were heading for the rocks. 
Dr Don Brash 
: No no that’s wrong. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I say to Dr Brash that squawking will get him nowhere—they are the last words from a man on his way out I would think. Mr Waters said in the  
Dominion Post 
: “I fear the risk for this country is if enough people keep saying there is going to be a recession it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy and there is no need for such gloom from how we see demand in the marketplace.” Now that is what the chief executive—[ 
Interruption 
] There “old chirpy” goes again squawking away. He had 10 minutes in this House to get up and make a statesmanlike speech and tell us his vision for the economy and for the country—what he would want to do if we were unlucky enough to have him leading this country. 
Hon Member 
: Not one idea. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: He does not have one idea my colleague says. He has not one policy yet he squawks like a sort of strangled chook. Well Dr Brash will learn once he has been here a wee while that his interjections show him up for what he is—and he is light. 
I support the Budget Policy Statement because it is about transforming our economy and looking after our families young and old and it is about something called “framing national identity”—something that Dr Brash once hypothesised about. He was asked—I think when he was on an aircraft—what it meant to be a New Zealander and he could not answer. I think he said that it had something to do with being in first class. I could give him 4.2 million ideas as to what it means to be a New Zealander but we will not transgress there. But it shows the lack of vision the lack of ideas and the lack of depth from the once-great Governor of the Reserve Bank. Others have also criticised Dr Brash. 
I ask Dr Brash and the National Party where their policy for families is. We have one the Working for Families package and we are implementing it. We have an aim of looking after our families young and old and we are doing that. Where is National’s policy in respect of transforming our economy? Where is its KiwiSaver scheme for instance? I recall Dr Brash the once-great Governor of the Reserve Bank saying the key challenge— 
Jill Pettis 
: He wasn’t. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh he was. He raised everybody’s interest rates. The key challenge facing New Zealanders he said was how to increase household savings. He went on to say that he was frankly not sure how this culture of low household-sector savings could be changed. The only option he hypothesised was that the interest rates at the time he was Governor of the Reserve Bank were too low to encourage savings and discourage borrowing. I ask him today where his scheme is. Where is the National Party vision and policy to encourage Kiwis to save? The only thing the National Party has apart from rolling out the doom and gloom is to drop taxes and cut spending. That is the panacea of National Party members. That is the depth of their economic analysis. They tried it in the 1990s and they imploded our economy. Where have they come from as we enter the 21st century? Is there any new vision from Dr Brash and his team even though they now have John Key whose name I am told is “National Velvet”? 
 It is interesting that in the Budget Policy Statement debate the finance spokesman is put in the back shed—I wonder why—and that the leader gets up and hypothesises. I wonder why Mr Key was not given the lead speech. 
Where was Dr Brash’s vision on savings? He has said for years that we must encourage savings. He is in the position of Leader of the Opposition he says that he is a potential Prime Minister yet he has no idea how to promote a savings scheme or how to change the culture of New Zealanders. We all know that New Zealanders ain’t that great at saving but Dr Brash hypothesises and says nothing. Yet he squawks like a headless chook from the back benches opposite. 
Where is Dr Brash’s package on student loans? He had a go at our package to assist students. If members ask any grandparents in this country they will find that their biggest fear before the election apart from Dr Brash getting in and slashing their superannuation was that they would not see their grandchildren again because those grandchildren had huge loans and the only way they could pay them back or maybe not pay them back was to go offshore. Yet Dr Brash on the stump and today said that he wants to encourage these young bright Kiwis back. But where is his policy to do it? It is not there. 
Our policy is to allow those young people to come back and to knock off the interest as an incentive to do it. Our policy is to retain and look after our young people—to retain them and incentivise them to stay. I used to have a student loan unlike Dr Brash. I am probably about the only member in this House who has done a degree under both schemes and who knows what it is like to have a student loan and to do it under the old scheme. The member opposite skated through. He would not know he is not in touch and he has evidenced that by his speech in this debate today. What is National doing for young people? Nothing. What is National doing for—[ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Tremain that I would be careful if I were he after what I heard at a select committee today. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: What is Don Brash’s policy on our older folks? His only policy of course was to wobble around on superannuation. We still do not know what his policy is today just like we do not know what his nuclear policy is. Our policy is clear. Our policy is to look after our elderly folk. The National Party’s usual tactic is to never let the facts get in the way of a good story and that is a tactic the Opposition uses in a number of theatres. 
In conjunction with my remarks on the Budget Policy Statement I will just say that we heard a lot in the House today during question time. I put this comment to the House—it is about the atmosphere in this place—and I ask senior members to consider it very carefully: the protocols have been broken by the new Joe McCarthy of the House Mr Hide. We all know where Joe ended up—a drunk disavowed by his President disavowed by his party and disavowed by his mates. That is how Joe McCarthy died. People ought to reflect on the nature of their conduct in the House. We are approaching what I think is a new form of McCarthyism and McCarthyism was predicated on the fact that silence said a person was guilty. McCarthyism was predicated on the principle of finishing people with slimy innuendo—a little salacious titbit here and a little salacious titbit there. Mr Hide—“Joe McCarthy”—is a master. People’s lives were destroyed and people’s reputations were sullied. 
I know and it is interesting that there are people on National’s side of the House who have been in the education profession and know what it was like to be an educator back in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet we do not hear a lot from them. We could draw some conclusions but I caution the House. This is an honourable place. I am hugely honoured to be a member of this Parliament and hugely honoured to be a member of the executive. Children and adults come into this place and are in awe—possibly not of the personalities in here but certainly of the institution that is Parliament. If we are not very very careful there will be no rules and there will be no protocols for anyone—even for those who sit next to you Mr Assistant Speaker—and a new form of McCarthyism will be alive and well and shame on this Chamber for it.