Cosgrove Clayton: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12907. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): That speaker Paul Goldsmith talked about the need to be fiscally responsible which as my colleague David Parker said is something that is agreed on in this House. You would have to say reading this sort of lightweight stuff in here in this Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill that the Government sort of needs its own wee guidebook to be fair to be equitable to take account of future generations in its expenditure to “formulate fiscal strategy with regard to [the] impact on future generations” and to “ensure the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently.” It needs a wee guidebook apparently to ensure that it adheres to basic fiscal principles.We over here do not need a guidebook. It is sort of in our DNA—it is how we were brought up. But to the member Mr Goldsmith who apparently has a monopoly on representing the working class all the way from Parnell to Epsom—the man who was John Banks’ biographer and who apparently has a monopoly on representing the working class—I just make this point. Is it fiscally responsible—David Bennett: Harvard. Herne Bay. Working class—where does that fit in?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: What was that “Billiard Ball”? Is it fiscally responsible for a Government to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars a week to put in place a tax cut where the top 10 percent get 40 percent of that tax cut and the bottom 20 percent get 2 percent of it? I just put that question. Is that fiscally responsible? Is that within the parameters of this “political pamphlet” full of piffle in here? Is that fiscally responsible? I would argue—Dr David Clark: Could be fairness.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Maybe it comes under fairness my colleague Mr Clark says. I think he is saying it tongue-in-cheek—I know he is—but it does not sound fiscally responsible to me to borrow hundreds of millions and its peak I think it was $300 million - plus per week.And those members talk about borrowing! They say that we were fiscally irresponsible. Well what the genius from the Waikato over there forgets of course is what his Government did inherit from us which was net Crown debt at zero—David Bennett: Oh recession.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —net Crown debt at zero. The recession—I mean maybe Mr Bennett lives in a very myopic little world and does not realise that there issomething called globalisation and an international fiscal crisis. Maybe he thinks that New Zealand initiated the whole global collapse you know in his own little world out the back in the bush in the Waikato but the deal is that these people—this Government—inherited 9 years of surpluses and net Crown debt at zero.As I have said previously in this House I remember as an Associate Minister of Finance being pilloried along with Michael Cullen by one Bill English the shadow finance Minister and I never thought in the history of my time in politics or when reading about it as a kid that I would hear a National Government attacking a Labour Government for being too tight and not spending a lot. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever hear that from this crew over here but what they wanted was for us to spend the lot. They said we were mean. Remember the “block of cheese Government”—the mean awful Labour Government that would not go and tax and spend and borrow and hope? That is exactly what these geniuses over here have done for the last 5 years: borrowed given a tax cut to their mates and been propped up by every other person sort of 80 percent of the people who has had to prop up their mates to pay for it. They have been borrowing $300 million a week. So I just ask them is that responsible? Mr Bennett was interjecting about debt. I say to Mr Bennett that I am happy for him to get up and have a crack. Is borrowing $300 million a week fiscally responsible? Oh hang on the boy from the Waikato is suddenly silent. He has lost his tongue—lost his tongue. Oh yes.The second thing I would say in terms of fiscal responsibility—because this bill is some sort of National Party bible; National needs an instruction book as to how to be told to be fiscally responsible—is about selling assets. Today we hear with regard to Meridian Energy that $140 million worth of divvies is not going to 4.4 million people; it is going to those shareholders who had a lot of money and could afford it. Is that fiscally responsible? We also know that the money raised from the Mighty River Power deal is not going into hospitals and schools; the money is going into giving advice on risk management to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I suppose there is some value in resourcing the Prime Minister’s department given its recent track management on risk management but that ain’t a school or a hospital or a road or a bridge the last time I checked.The money of course the millions of dollars going into free shares to pay for the free shares the giveaway or the bribe to people in the Mighty River Power deal the incentive scheme—where was that paid for? Out of the Future Investment Fund we know because those figures are in Mr English’s Budget. Is that fiscally responsible? We now have the Meridian Energy share deal which is you know you get a free lot of shares. It is “Buy now pay later. Next stop a set of steak knives.”—whatever it takes to get it off the deck. Is that fiscally responsible? Is it fiscally responsible to have hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the pockets of those who live in New York and London and Tokyo and Zurich and other places rather than it being ploughed into the infrastructure that those members say—and we agree with them—this country so desperately needs in respect of hospitals and schools and roadways and transportation and all those good things. Is that fiscally responsible?Maybe they should actually take this bill away and rewrite it because they talk a lot. Mr Goldsmith got found out of course by Mr Parker over superannuation. He is a lion in this Chamber—a lion in this Chamber—when saying that nothing needs to be done in terms of securing superannuation for future generations.Hon Maryan Street: Put him up in front of an audience.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: How do you secure it? You have got to reform it. You have got to make it sustainable. But oh put him up as my colleague Maryan Street says before an audience. Oh what does he say? “Yes there will have to bereform but that is for another Government—that is for another Government and another time.” He says “another Government” so what he is really saying and what Mr Hayes of course signed up to is that those members know it has to be done. They know that their grandkids and their great-grandkids deserve—here Mr Goldsmith is now—superannuation and should be entitled to and should get New Zealand superannuation. I do not buy the argument that many of my generation had which is that nothing will be left for us because you know it is just the way it is. No there should be superannuation for my generation and for generations beyond.The way you secure that is to tell people the truth to bite the bullet and to put in the transitional provisions for people like the building site person whose knees have gone—John Hayes: Who yougonna vote for?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —Mr Hayes’ knees have gone for other reasons but we will not go there—so that they can actually progress and perhaps retire a little early because the body’s given up. The way to actually secure that is to be truthful with people and say that people of my age—43—may have to work a bit longer and we will to provide for others. Mr Goldsmith is a lion in this Chamber but he says that it will be up to a future Government. It will be up to a future Government.What that tells us is that this bill is simply political propaganda. This is just designed to tell people whatever they want to hear and when these guys slither out of this place in the next election—slither over to this side of the House—then it will be up to as it always is a Labour Government to fix it to be fiscally responsible as we were with the Cullen fund and to be fiscally responsible as we did with KiwiSaver. All of which National railed against. It said it was communism it said it would repeal it and what has it done? Nothing. We hear record profitability for the Cullen fund today—and it should be officially named that I reckon. That is called fiscal responsibility. That is called not just talking about providing for future generations and assessing the impact of Government policy in line with its impact on future generations.We do not need a guidebook—a level 101 book for dummies on how to be responsible. We do not need that because we did it. We did not need anybody to tell us. We set up superannuation mechanisms—KiwiSaver the Cullen fund—because we knew that they would have a positive effect on future generations. [Interruption] The man from Waikato is opposed to it. The man from Waikato I believe in one of his election campaigns went around and campaigned against it. I bet he would not do that next time. I bet he would not go on the stump in the Waikato and say: “I’m going to repeal the Cullen fund and I’m going to ditch KiwiSaver.” Oh he will not say that this time because he knows that people understand it. That is called fiscal responsibility.We do not need half a dozen pages of drivel. The best argument the Government can come up with is that the Labour Party not supporting a bill because it is piffle means we do not believe in it. Well we do not need somebody to write down that you have got to look after future generations. We do not need a clause in this bill that says you must formulate revenue strategy having regard to efficiency and fairness including the predictability and stability of tax rates. We did not set up a tax regime where the top 10 percent got 40 percent and the bottom 20 percent got 2 percent. We did not do that. We did not need anybody to define for us to tell us to give us a definition for what was fairness. We knew because unlike them it is in our DNA. It is what we were brought up with. It is our value base. It is in our DNA. I do not know what is in Mr Goldsmith’s DNA—I hate to think—but we do not need a guidebook. This bill is a political pamphlet it is piffle and it is a waste of taxpayers’ money. It is irresponsible that we are spending taxpayers’ money and time on debating this tripe.