English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:662;Page:10546] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Labour is rebranding. It used to be the “Tax and Spend Party”; now it is the “Tax Spend and Borrow Party”. I looked through the big list of qualities that it wants to attribute to the Labour brand such as funky cool and—what else was there? 
Chris Tremain 
: Edgy. 
Hon Members 
: Retro. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There was edgy retro creepy—[ 
Interruption 
] Boring that is right—and intelligent. I did my own survey of members of the public. The one thing the public knows—and probably the only thing because members of the public do not quite remember the name of the Leader of the Opposition and they certainly have never heard of the Opposition’s finance spokesperson—is that Labour wants to borrow money and borrow big. 
I have been looking at what Labour members say about their policy. Debt is a serious issue in New Zealand and I will tell members why. There is any number of ways we can measure it but let us take net debt. The dollar amount of net debt for the financial year ended 30 June 2009 was $17 billion; that was the Government’s net debt. By 2016 it will be $65 billion and that is under the careful considered management of this Government. It will go from $17 billion to $65 billion and that sits alongside a broader picture for New Zealand where the total amount of debt owed by New Zealand—by Government households and businesses—in 2000 was $90 billion. New Zealand’s net debt today stands at $170 billion and it was heading to $250 billion by 2014. 
Why is that potentially a problem? We have only to see what is happening in world debt markets as we speak with regard to Greece. Who knows; Portugal may be next. We are entering a decade where Governments with high debt levels will be scrutinised more closely than at any time since before the Second World War as to what they are doing to make sure that the people who lend money will get it back. Greece is finding out that if a country does not do enough people will stop lending to it and then it will have a real problem. 
In that context Labour’s brightest star—according to him—David Cunliffe says that debt is not a big problem. What is more he has backed up that assertion not just with poetry but also with policy positions. There is no doubt that the policy positions are pretty clear-cut. Labour wants to borrow a whole lot more money to put into the superannuation fund to put back the research and development tax credits and to make up for all the low-quality spending that we are shifting around. Labour has made its position on debt pretty clear. Labour does not think it matters much. Those members think it is fine to borrow a lot more when borrowing is already going up far too fast. They simply do not care about the people who will come after them who would have to pay back $65 billion worth of the net debt that New Zealand would have. 
But at least we know what Labour’s position is on debt—that is borrow a lot more money. We have no idea what Labour’s position is on tax. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Nor do they. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: And that is exactly the point. The reason it is hard for us to tell is that Labour does not know. GST is not a new subject. It has been kicking around for 9 months. Labour members’ position seems to be that they are against GST but they cannot promise not to do GST because they are not sure whether they can carry out that promise. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Because they don’t know what they are doing. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Because they do not know what they are doing. They are worried that all their spending promises might need GST to pay for them. They are against GST but they will not roll it back. But it is absolutely clear that Labour is in favour of borrowing more and more money.