Lees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLees-Galloway Iain: New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 07 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3333. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):That was a very eloquent contribution from the member Andrew Bayly. It was lovely to hear him extolling the virtues of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—the Cullen fund as it is affectionately known. It is good that Mr Bayly is a new member of the House and was not here back in 2001 because otherwise the National Party would have deployed him to tell us all the reasons why the Cullen fund was an appalling idea and something that was a waste of money and something that New Zealand could not afford. It is good to see that the National Party has finally come around to the idea that actually the New Zealand Superannuation Fund squirreling away some money now and investing it very wisely—and Mr Bayly did discuss at length the success of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—in order to fund our superannuation needs in the future from 2030 onwards was actually a very wise and forward-thinking idea from the then Labour Government introduced by the finance Minister Michael Cullen.Of course National said: “No no no no we can’t do this.” In fact National bemoaned the fact that Labour ran surpluses. It said we should provide tax cuts and of course that would have made it impossible to save that money. National is always thinking about its mates first and always thinking about the here and now. It has no vision for the future—no foresight whatsoever. It opposed KiwiSaver and it opposed interest-free student loans and it opposed a whole host of things that it now actually supports. That is the nature of conservative Governments—no ideas of their own. They have all sorts of reasons why you should not do things but then when those things actually bed in and turn out to be good ideas oh actually they supported them all along.It is interesting to hear Chris Bishop actually because he is the master of spin we all know that—perhaps not after the Northland by-election but he was one of the National Party’s spin doctors before he came into Parliament. He said that Labour likes to call this the Cullen fund. Actually people may not remember this but the “Cullen fund” as a term was an invention of the National Party members because they thought that by associating Dr Cullen with this awful superannuation fund it might actually damage Labour.Chris Hipkins: Communism!IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Communism yes—not by stealth at that stage; I do not think they had coined that term at that point. Of course this was in 2001 and we all know what happened to the National Party in the 2002 election with its 20 percent result. Maybe National members have realised that actually the “Cullen fund” is now a term of endearment and they want to try to say that the term was something that Labour invented but actually it was the National Party in an appalling effort to try to spin against the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.I was also quite pleased to hear from Mr Bayly that he was impressed by both the success of the superannuation fund and ACC with its investments and they are actually two of the best investment vehicles in New Zealand. I think actually as a private citizen I would quite like to be able to invest my money in either of those because they do a very very good job. It is a really good demonstration of how the State actually can run things extremely well. The State can be prudent managers of finance. The State can be prudent investors. Actually the decisions that the State agencies essentially—ACC and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund—are making around investment are actually doing wonderful things for the country. It flies in the face of what the National Party believes in—that you have got to privatise everything and that the private sector will always be better than the State at absolutely everything particularly around matters of finance. Andrew Bayly actually used the word “innovative” and it again proves that the State can be a source of great innovation much in opposition to what the National Party believes.This is a good piece of legislation that Labour is happy to support. It will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way the Guardians of the Superannuation Fund are able to administer the fund in order to carry on the absolutely superb results that the superannuation fund has achieved since it was created and established back in 2003. That is important because this is a long-term investment. This was something set up by a Labour Government that was interested in ensuring that the security of future generations was supported by the actions that we take now. So we do support this bill because this is a good fund and a good way to secure New Zealand’s future.