Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 18 August 2010. Volume:665;Page:13231. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 The previous speaker the Hon Bill English sat down in a hurry and well he might. On the subject of splits and divisions let us call to mind the record of John Key and Bill English. Let us think about policies that matter to real New Zealanders. Here is the top of the list. Bill English said that the Overseas Investment Office should be open slather that we should bring in the buyers for Crafar farms and let Sammy Wong and the others have their way with it. Guess what? John Key said no we would be tenants in our own country. He said that Mr English could not do that. 
Let us talk about KiwiSaver shall we? Bill English said that KiwiSaver was a rotten system that was not working. Bill English has been doing some polling and he now says it is time we had a policy. After 2 years the Government has set up a committee but Government members cannot agree amongst themselves. On tax policy John Key said we should make tax better and we would not increase GST. Bill English said that we would—we are putting up GST on 1 October. Every New Zealander will suffer. 
In his speech Bill English said that the voters were right. I do not know about that but I know that voters gave National a chance. Kiwis are fair-minded people. They said that Labour had had three terms and they should give National a chance to see what it could do. Do members know what the voters have found out? National promised them we would catch up with Australia. We went backwards by 50 bucks a week for the average worker and we are falling further behind. National said it would stop the brain drain across the Tasman. What have we got? The June-on-June number—the number of Kiwis leaving—has doubled from a year ago. 




 National said it had a plan—wrong. A plan is not a goal. A goal is not a strategy. A plan has a map: we know where to start we know where we want to get to we work out the milestones and we have a compass to get us along the way. Is that what this National Government has given New Zealand? It does not have a plan. It does not have any more than a series of slogans and it is running from poll-driven fruitcakes to flip-flops—flip-flops. 
In the last 3 months 19000 more New Zealanders have lost their jobs and the number of unemployed has risen to 159000. I want to talk about just two of those New Zealanders both from my electorate whom I have seen recently. “Mrs U” worked for 14 years in a rest home in Epsom—14 years. She was sacked without notice. She was rung up and told not to come to work because her employer had ended up hiring a younger newer person on a lower wage rate. “Mrs U” got a reference after 14 years that had four lines in it—after 14 years of hard work. That is one example. 
I will give members another example. “Mr E” lives in Kelston. He is a Polynesian worker at a factory in Penrose. He is an honest man. He has four children and a wife. He lost his job in the recession because this Government did not have a plan for jobs. Now he cannot afford a State house and he and his family have moved in with his brother. There are eight kids and four adults in one 2½-bedroom house. That Government has no plan. There are 19000 more New Zealanders like those 12. “Mrs U” was sacked at will because this Government’s latest fad is firing workers and cranking down employment conditions. 
The list of National’s reversals and short-term flip-flops has got so long that it is a joke. Those members called it a rolling maul but it looks to me like a ruck up. Catching up with Australia? The 2025 Taskforce was dead on arrival. The Job Summit and the national cycleway were both scaled back. The 9-day working fortnight was cancelled in the middle of a recession. Budget 2009 deferred pre-funding superannuation and lied to New Zealanders about it. It created a $50 billion fiscal hole. It reduced stimulus and it raised unemployment. Budget 2010 broke a promise by raising the rate of GST. Most New Zealanders will be worse off next year when they face 5.9 percent inflation. 
Who knows where the review of the Overseas Investment Office will come out? Bill English wants to liberalise it and John Key wants to tighten it. What about the latest random walks on their map: mining national parks firing at will so-called compulsory superannuation and—here is the newest stuff—savings?