English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
English Bill: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10393] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 It would be useful if the Minister of Finance could answer one question arising from the Treasury annual report. There is quite a focus in there on Treasury being designated as a problem solver in the public service. One cannot help but read Treasury’s description of what the Minister wants it to do and think that he has lost faith in the rest of the civil service and that the Government is becoming frustrated because the civil service will not produce the solutions that an ageing and a tired Government wants to see in order to make it feel as though it is getting somewhere. Its response to that is—oddly and ironically for Labour—to designate Treasury as the lead solution agency. Well I would like to hear from Dr Cullen as to why that is. 
Dr Cullen will probably get up and say that the Government wants Treasury to find solutions. Well the reason Treasury is having trouble finding solutions for Dr Cullen is that he has created so much confusion and complexity for himself in his economic management. Let us look at the attempt over the last 6 or 8 months to try to absolve the Labour Government from any responsibility for the highest interest rates in the developed world and a record exchange rate. It started about 8 months ago I think—I cannot remember exactly how many months ago—when Dr Cullen started to say that we needed other tools to assist monetary policy to belt a rising housing market. With some disappointment I noted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank appeared to use the same kind of rhetoric. The Reserve Bank is independent and should be at arm’s length from the Minister but between the two of them they have now managed to sow a paddock of confusion about what the Reserve Bank is focused on and about what Dr Cullen thinks are the actions that a sensible and well-managed Government could take regarding the economy. 
Dr Cullen needs to understand that many New Zealanders are not fooled by the elegant crafting of his own words. They have seen the sideshows of the last 6 months for what they are: the result of a Government that now faces the accumulated results of its economic management since it has been in office. Those results are not pretty for the economy and they are certainly not pretty for voters which explains Dr Cullen’s particular anxiety to make sure that he is not labelled with any responsibility whatsoever for them. However that appears to be not working because it is now common gossip coming not out of the National Party but out of the Labour Party that Labour is wrestling with the trade-off of whether to get rid of him. 
Should Labour keep Dr Cullen because he is the only competent Minister left on the front bench? I agree that he is. Compared with Steve Maharey who we hear has got the job of vice-chancellor of Massey University—and if he has not got it he is certainly trying very hard to get it—and the rest of them Dr Cullen certainly is competent. So should Labour keep him because he is the one person the public believes can at least get to grips with an issue and has not completely lost it or should it get rid of him because he represents political death for Labour every time he gets in the media? Every time Dr Cullen gets in the media it reminds people that the Government thinks it can use their money better than they can and that 7 years of Labour has led to the highest interest rates in the developed world. Not only are they the highest interest rates but they will stay the highest rates for longer; there is to be no relief before the end of 2008. I see today that a number of economists are picking that the situation will get worse and I think the member for Waimakariri knows what that is doing to his majority out there in the suburbs. 
We have the highest interest rates in the developed world and a Minister who believes he has had absolutely nothing to do with them. That is the credibility gap. Every time Dr Cullen claims that the Government’s decisions over the last 7 years have had absolutely nothing to do with the highest interest rates in the developed world no one believes him.