Cunliffe David: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Cunliffe David: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:618;Page:13820] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in the debate on this Appropriation (2003/04 Supplementary Estimates) Bill which is necessary for the ongoing efficient running of the Government. The debate provides an opportunity to highlight the various areas of expenditure of the taxpayers’ funds we are appropriating today. In the words of my colleague the Hon Matt Robson it also highlights the smooth functioning of the Government based on the strong coalition between Labour the Progressives and United Future and I might note the increasing cooperation of the Green Party which is also valued. It is appropriate for us to consider seriously the uses for which these funds are put because this is the taxpayer’s hard-earned money and it is absolutely important that this House debates thoroughly what it is being spent on and how. 
Tonight I would like to cover three things. Firstly I would like to summarise and to a large extent rebut the claims the Opposition has made in this debate—at least while I have been listening. Secondly I would like to draw the attention of the public to how things have changed since the Government took office in 1999. Thirdly and perhaps most important I want to really emphasise that the job is not done yet. We have a historic mission to take New Zealand forward and New Zealand cannot risk a change of Government and another few years of parties on the other side trying to run things because their track record last time they were in office was so miserable. It was so ineffectual that New Zealand cannot afford another lost decade and still hope to be a sovereign nation. 
Let us turn first to the Opposition’s affairs. If I were Don Brash I think I would be despairing. When we look down the newly promoted members on his front bench and tick off their contributions in this debate we ask ourselves whether there is anyone there. There is John Key. Yes he knows how to trade foreign exchange and I think he also knows how to tell the truth which is why he has been quoted in the  
New Zealand Herald  
as advocating a tax cut for high-income earners. That is the Opposition’s agenda and that is what we would get from a National-ACT coalition. Let there be no mistake: we would be going back to the dark years of the 1990s when the top 10 percent got 30 percent richer and the bottom 50 percent got poorer. New Zealand cannot afford to go back and although I appreciate Mr Key’s honesty I think his leader must be gnashing his teeth because he was not supposed to say that. 
Looking down the line there is tired old Lockwood Smith with the tax-cut mantra and the marginal tax rate. Would someone please explain to that member that it does not matter where the level of family assistance is set the problem of marginal tax rates is exactly 100 percent the same. All this Budget does by supporting lowest-income people children and middle-income earners is just raise the level a little and that does not change the problem at all. We cannot have it both ways; we cannot target benefits to the people who need them and avoid the problem of marginal tax rates. That is just a fact of mathematics and it is time that member learnt some. 
Simon Power is next along the row. What is it about the defence portfolio that seems to give people foot-and-mouth disease? It is Simon Power who said that National would unreservedly go wherever Uncle Sam or Uncle George W sends us. Goodness me Don Brash must be pulling his hair out at that one! That reminds me of the previous defence spokesperson Richard Worth who enjoyed camel rides and pyramid gazing. Then there is Mr Wayne “let’s buy fighter planes” Mapp. If we think Dr Cullen has a steady hand on the exchequer what sort of problem will Mr Key have when his colleagues start to spend money a billion at a time? 
Brian Connell—the man whose contribution is matched only by his CV who has finally lowered his sights from being leader to being Minister of Finance and is equally likely to achieve both offices—delivered the expected drivel. We have news for Mr Connell. He alleged that this Budget was a bribe. If we were going to do a quick bribe of a Budget we would not have spent 2 years working on the social policy that underlies it. If we had wanted a public relations winner we would not have targeted income supplements to the most marginalised in our society. Instead we would have given chardonnay to the chattering classes. 
This Budget gives help to children who need it. Lockwood Smith says: “Oh it’s only one family in five.” Brian Connell says: “It’s only a few who benefit.” This Budget cuts child poverty by three-quarters and two-thirds of all New Zealand families who have any children at all will benefit substantially. That is not marginal; that is mainstream. 
Despite the fact that this is a solid targeted Budget and not a public relations exercise the polls have shifted all right. The Government has won by a net 6 percent against National in the last month and its lead in the UMR Insight poll is increasing so do not tell me that this Government is not appreciated by the public. Mr Brash’s one-hit Orewa wonder by teasing the lowest common denominator of our social underbelly has passed—and good riddance to it. 
 Finally Mr Connell talked about what his real agenda is—the so-called productive sector. I want to peel that back. Is it true that only the rich work hard? Is it true that only the rich are morally valuable in our society or do hard-working New Zealanders who go to the factory or the office each day for their 15 bucks an hour count too? Do they not count just as much as Mr Connell or Mr Key with his house that Merrill built? 
I know what we stand for. We stand for the great Kiwi tradition of fairness for the ordinary bloke. It used to be part of the National Party’s tradition. I believe it is still a part of Mr Ardern’s tradition but it is not a part of his colleagues’ agenda. Mr Ardern should be National’s agriculture spokesperson. He is the only one who knows anything about it. He is a good bloke. I am on a select committee with him. He should be on National’s front bench. 
Mark Peck 
: And he can drive a tractor. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Badly at times but is he on National’s front bench? No that party has a Fendalton farmer Mr David Carter running the agriculture show. Don Brash must despair. 
That is enough about those members; let us talk about us. When we took office the National Government had left the economy with a decade’s legacy of growth of only 2.6 percent per annum. Since then it has risen to 3.4 percent. Not only that the OECD average in these so-called “good luck” years has been 1 percent and we have tripled it. How much good luck can one Government have? 
That genius Mr Connell reckons it is because of our low exchange rates. When was the last time he read the business pages of the  
New Zealand Herald 
? When we took office it was around 52c against the US dollar; a month ago it was around 71c. When was the last time he talked to a cow-cocky trying to export milk? Don Brash must despair. 
When we took office unemployment was at 6.7 percent; now it is at 4.3 percent. Inflation has stayed down and there we agree with National on one thing. We need an independent central bank but we put in a Policy Targets Agreement that means that the Reserve Bank does not hit the brakes every time there is a stutter in the exchange rate. We smooth it out so exporters can export. 
I could go on about all the good news but I will not because I want to be honest about something: the job is not done yet. Kiwis know the job is not done. They do not actually care about all the good things we have done for the last 3 years because they will ask us in 15 months’ time what we will do for them in the next 3 years. That is a fair question. Our historic mission is to raise the level of value and information in the products we export. Let us think about the way the world is changing. It is globalising and in a global world we have to get good or get out. That means we have to know what we stand for. We need a unique selling proposition to take out and market to the world and that means we need a strategy for what we do well. If we do not know no one else will tell us. 
That is why we cannot afford 10 years of the Tories. They never had a clue. Their excuse was to leave it to the market and just hope that someone else could dream it up. But they did not did they? That is why we had miserable low growth. That is why their cheap solution resulted in social dislocation like one would not believe. That is why they have no answers even now. That is why we come to work every week in Parliament. We know that only a Labour-led Government can lead New Zealand into the future that New Zealanders deserve. Next September or whenever the election is New Zealanders will prove that that is what they want.