Cunliffe David: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 14 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:328. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch may I take the opportunity in this my first contribution in the new Parliament to congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair and to congratulate through you Speaker Smith. May I also offer congratulations to the Government on the election results as it begins its second and last term of this Government.  
Can I acknowledge the member who has just resumed her seat the maiden opposite Amy Adams who has become a Minister through reciting key lines it appears. I would like to deal with just three of them before commencing my material. The first one was that you cannot spend it before you earn it—a fair enough point. They reckon their Government has reduced debt. Well as my colleague Mr Goff interjected quite rightly it was the previous Labour Government that reduced debt. But do not take our word for it; look at Treasury’s numbers: debt was 35 percent of GDP—35 percent of GDP—when Labour took office in 1999 and 17 percent in gross terms in 2008. In net terms it went down from 18 percent to zero forming the first credit since Sir Julius Vogel borrowed to build the railways. New Zealand’s Government books were in credit under Labour. Where are they now? I ask the member whether she really wants to stand on a record of debt reduction.  
The second point was Government spending which was 29 percent of GDP on average under the Labour Government. It started at 29 percent and ended on 30 percent. Guess what it is today: 33 percent of GDP. It has gone up 2.5 percent under National not gone down. Every year the Government reduces the tax take because the economy has fallen in a hole and every year it promises restraint to get the books back in order. National is chasing its tail. It is chasing its tail because we all know that when in a recession retrenchment and austerity prolong it. It is time for a growth strategy. It is time for jobs. It is time for getting New Zealand moving again.  
There is one thing I agree with the member opposite on: I do want to extend the condolences the sympathy and the empathy of members on this side to the people of Canterbury. Ten thousand earthquakes is an appalling thing to have lived through and we do I think offer solidarity in respect of Canterbury. But I would say this: there is $25 billion to be invested in rebuilding that wonderful city—and it was my home province for many years too. But I tell you this: if we do not sort out the insurance situation down there—where insurers will not insure new builds new plants new homes or new businesses—the recovery will not occur. I commend my colleague Lianne Dalziel for leading the charge on the insurance fiasco. Where is the Government? And more to the point where are the Government’s books if Canterbury continues to subside into a policy liquefaction?  
The Address in Reply debate—for people listening in or watching at home—is the triennial free-for-all that goes on after the Governor-General gets the privilege of reading out the Prime Minister’s Speech from the Throne. I have a huge amount of respect for His Excellency Lieutenant General The Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae the new Governor-General but I have to say I felt a tad sorry for him reading out during his first time in that chair what has to go down in history as the smallest the shortest the meanest and the most vacuous Speech from the Throne that this Parliament has ever had the misfortune to hear. There were no ideas— 
Simon Bridges 
: Did you write it? Did you write it David?  
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —no new ideas. Sure as hell Paul Goldsmith did not write it; it would have gone to 1000 pages if it was from that member. I think John Key must have written it on the bus on the way to the office. 
Hon Annette King 
: What bus? Do you mean the limo? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Oh the limo on the way to the office—good point. No he would not be taking a bus. It was remarkable. Why was it so short? Shortness is sometimes something to be admired but not in the case of this Speech from the Throne because it was short on achievement. Gone was the aspiration. Gone were the sunny uplands of the brighter future. Gone was the target of the first term of catching up with Australia. It was a 30 percent wage gap when it started; it is close to 40 percent today. It would be a joke if our young people were not leaving in droves if in 2011 we did not have the highest net out migration of New Zealanders in our history and if more people had not voted with their feet and told their children their families and their workmates “I’ve been trying for years. I’m sick of it. I can’t do it any more. We’ve got to go.” They have got to go because this Government has got no ideas.  
There is a 120-point plan. If you have got 120 points of everything let me tell you members opposite it is not a plan; it is a laundry list. It is not a plan; it is a laundry list. There are no priorities and no performance measures. It has given up on catching Australia. There is no strategy. That is why. Do not ask the Labour Party; ask Business New Zealand. Three-quarters of chief executive officers surveyed before the election said National did not have a plan for the economy. Three-quarters in Business New Zealand—how would we put it—manured in their own nest by saying that the Government had not got a clue on economic management and they were right.  
This Government has ballooned debt just like the Republicans in the United States: come in preach balanced Budgets blow out the deficit and then blame the Democrats. It is the same thing here: preach free markets; implement sell cut and hope; and blow out the deficit because tax revenue collapses. What happens? Very little—very little in terms of growth and very little in terms of recovery.  
Where did that leave the Governor-General? It reminded me of the American senator who had rather annoyed his speech-writer. In the opening page of his address to the Senate it said: “In my speech I will grow the economy—” 
Simon Bridges 
: This is as old as the hills David. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: “I will solve world hunger”—or child poverty in the case of Mr Bridges; he will worry about world hunger when he grows up. And on page 2 it said as follows: “Now you’re on your own you bugger.”—“Now you’re on your own you bugger.” That is how His Excellency the Governor-General must have felt when he got to page 4 of the Speech from the Throne and there was no plan. All he had was the dismal results of a failed 3 years thousands of broken lives and New Zealanders who have rushed for the exit because they have given up hope in their own country.  
They say that Oppositions do not win elections; Governments lose them. Well the Government is on track to lose the next one and Labour will be doing its little bit to help. We will be doing our bit to help in two ways. No. 1 is by holding the Government to account. We will not put up with rubber numbers. Here is today’s latest rubber number from the Ministry of Economic Development: how much does the Ministry of Economic Development think tourism has given to the New Zealand economy in Rugby World Cup year? The answer is $320 million plus or minus 20 percent according to its survey. Plus or minus 20 percent? The ministry has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Rugby World Cup and it cannot get the figure on the tourism spend to within 20 percent.  
What is worse figures out today from the Ministry of Economic Development show that the tourism spend was only 3 percent higher than the previous year lower than the year before that and lower than 2 years before that. In other words the much-vaunted Rugby World Cup—fun as it was; I loved it too—did absolutely nothing for our economy. It did absolutely nothing for our economy. If that is the Government’s idea of an economic plan it proves what the Opposition has been saying for the last 3 years: they are platitudes in search of a plan—platitudes in search of a plan—and gimmicks in search of a strategy.  
Those ragtag members over there are here for one reason and it is not a very secure one. They are here on the coat-tails of John Key. Now John Key is currently setting a record: a record reduction in personal poll ratings. He is down 9 percent in 2 weeks— 
Hon Amy Adams 
: He’s still got a rather large lead over your leader. Who is your leader?  
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —down 9 percent. The parrot opposite has got a problem. I feel sorry for the backbenchers in the far rows of Mongolia or Bulgaria or whatever they call it up there in the back row. They are here because of Mr Key’s personal popularity—personal popularity—and they will not be here long because it does not look like it is going to last to the next election. They will not be here long so it was nice to know you guys. Have fun back on the farm. Have fun back on the farm.