Cunliffe David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Cunliffe David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Volume:653;Page:2067] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 When Bill English goes back to his office and looks at the replay of that speech he will see that even the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee was nodding off behind him and that other members like David Bennett were bored stupid by a speech that proved why that member can never lead the National Party— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Again. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —again. I tell “Mr 2 Percent” that that was a 2 percent effort. Here is a message to Bill English: “You won. We lost. So grow up and govern!”. He should stop blaming Labour or the international recession for every problem National has on its plate. National should grow up and govern. 
I tell my colleagues that he is a Minister whose tail is hanging between his legs because he was caught out at the Finance and Expenditure Committee telling porkies. He was caught out saying there were unfunded liabilities when quite clearly there were not and he was forced to admit that National itself would use the same techniques in the Budget. He was caught out saying National would have no forecasts when the very next week he came back with a new one. And he has been caught out trying to have it both ways by saying the pre-election fiscal update sticks but that somehow Labour never really told him what it really had in the closet. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: He can’t have it both ways. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: He cannot have it both ways. But he told us one very important thing in his speech. His own members were asleep and did not notice. He said the Government has a two-pronged strategy—and we agree that it does. The code “take the sharpest edges off the recession” means that National will send out John Key on a public relations offensive about cycleways and 9-day fortnights. That is pure flimflam that at best will save a handful of jobs but looks kind of soft gentle and centrist. In the second half of his speech he said National will position New Zealand for the rebound with a programme of regulatory reform. Oh yeah! We can bet it will. The Government does have an agenda but it is a very bad agenda and an agenda that New Zealanders did not vote for because they were not told about it before the election. Crosby/Textor National’s spin-meister said: “If you tell New Zealanders they won’t vote for it.” New Zealanders threw out that man Roger Douglas when he tried that they threw out Ruth Richardson when she tried that and they will throw out that lot when they realise that is what has been done. 
The Budget Policy Statement comes with the hard work of the all-powerful Finance and Expenditure Committee behind it. The report which is before us in the House and that no one has yet mentioned explodes some very important myths. It acknowledges in a bipartisan way—and the Minister acknowledged this to the committee—that the Government actually inherited low debt. Unlike most other OECD countries which have between 40 and 50 percent of gross sovereign debt to GDP to contend with this Government started out with 17 to 18 percent. That is in black and white in the Minister’s own words. 
Hon Members 
: Why? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Because of the great Labour Government which had 9 good years of governing for all New Zealanders. The second thing that is in black and white is that the Government inherited extremely low unemployment and that New Zealand is better able to cope with the recession. 
Hon Members 
: Why? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Because of the great Labour Government and 9 years of hard work by New Zealanders. The starting position in black and white is not what that Minister has claimed in the House; it is anything but. It is a damned good start and all New Zealanders contributed to it. 
The second myth that was exploded in this report is that of unfunded liabilities. National’s view is that if it cannot blame the economy then it should blame the Labour Party and say that it hid a whole lot of bombs. The trouble is that it did not. The trouble is that every time the Minister mentioned an unfunded liability with a bit of digging and a bit of analysis in this report guess what was found? It was not really there. The accident compensation scheme was not an unfunded liability; it was the difference between an unrealised change in the capital value of its actuarial account and an interest rate cut that had loaded up the notional value of its future claims. That is not an unfunded liability. 
An unspecified fiscal risk as the Minister later admitted in the Chamber is something he will be using in his May Budget for anything when he cannot tell us the exact amount of the debt. That is another myth that was exploded in this report. 
The dilemma the Government has is either that it has no plan which is what Gordon Campbell said when he said the wheels are coming off its key arguments like the 9-day fortnight and the cycle track or that it has a very dark plan which is what Fran O’Sullivan was getting at in Saturday’s  
New Zealand Herald  
where she said that it is a very very fine line between using the international recession to create the “ ‘burning deck’ to force radical change and downright chicanery”. That is what Fran O’Sullivan said. She is not a journalist known for her sympathies to the Labour Party but she is saying to the Government: “Just be careful Mr Key. You’re looking a bit like a soft shoe shuffle. You’re being a little bit too clever by spinning too hard and leaving poor old ‘Mr 2 Percent’ to do all the hard work.” In fact Bill English has been left carrying the baby. That is the truth of it. He has $1.75 billion to spend and way too much to do with it and he is going to have a tough job. It will be a black day for New Zealand on Budget day come the end of May when people start counting the chickens that are coming home to roost. 
Another great myth that was exploded in this report is that the fiscal stimulus that this Government has come up with is the fifth largest in the Western World. How many times has the Government trotted that one out? It cannot be can it? Guess what! Of the $13 billion of stimulus $12.5 billion came from the Labour Government and half a billion came from the National Government. It is almost like National members have been asleep. National put Treasury to sleep the day it got elected. Of all that $13 billion of effort—anything designed to inflate the economy when New Zealanders are quite rightly contracting their own household balance sheets and businesses as they are trying to pay down their debt and anything the Government can and should be doing to keep the wheels of industry turning and keep New Zealanders in jobs—$12.5 billion was from Labour Government policy. It was $12.5 billion from the previous Government and half a billion in the 6 months since the National Government has been elected. 
That is why when the 100 days of action drew to its close and the Crosby/Textor script ran out we started to see more of the real plan that Mr English today has confirmed is “positioning New Zealand for growth through regulatory reform.” You bet! The privatisation of prisons is a start and the accident compensation scheme is not far behind. The trouble was—[ 
Interruption 
] Absolutely! 
The first thing that Nick Smith exploded was his own temper. That was the problem. Imagine walking into a select committee and replacing the chairman of a delegated board. Does this man have the first clue about governance? He sacked the chair then he muzzled the chief executive. 
Paula Bennett’s idea of being friendly open and centrist is to say that no idea that the Labour Party could contribute even if was something as simple as warming our homes could possibly be considered by a job summit. I think one journalist likened that to the situation in Zimbabwe. I thought that was a little bit cruel but it certainly was not John Key on a good day was it? No it should be back to the Murray McCully finishing school for her. 
This Government is running out of puff already. It is not exactly positioning itself for three terms; it is having trouble scrambling past 3 months. All joking aside as much as we are enjoying this speech I fear I have only another minute. The Budget Policy Statement is a very important document. It lays out the truth on some myths. Myth No. 1 is that the Government inherited a bad start. Governments around the world would have killed for 17 percent debt and 4 percent unemployment. That is the first point. Myth No. 2 is that the Budget 2008 was full of holes. That is absolute rubbish. The Minister had to admit he will have the same things in May’s Budget. Myth No. 3 is that the Government has a plan. It has a script not a plan. It has a Crosby/Textor script and it just ran out. 
In conclusion from page 1 of Bill English’s Budget speech he may well say: “Look I am going to solve world hunger. I am going to solve the economic crisis.” When he comes to page 2 it will be blank.