Cunliffe David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Debate on Budget Policy Statement 
[Sitting date: 02 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1881. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 A little-known fact is that there is a secret club in Parliament shared by Grant Robertson me and John Hayes—[ 
Interruption 
]—and Tim Groser. We are all alumni of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. So I am very very sad to have to record in the House today that the Government’s change programme for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the savings from which are part of its Budget is going to be a complete and utter disaster. If that ministry is falling apart there is no one to blame but its disreputable Minister Murray McCully the Minister who is hanging his own chief executive out to dry and presiding over a change programme that will only on today’s information save $12 million— 
John Hayes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think it is inappropriate for that speaker to have used the words “disreputable Minister” in reference to Mr McCully and I think he should withdraw. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is a debatable point and it is up to the member or the Minister himself to raise a point of order. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is saving $12 million but spending $9 million to do it—net $3 million—and wrecking the Foreign Service in the process. But John Hayes did say something very revealing. I am not sure that he was supposed to say it to the House but he said the crucial thing is to contract the size of government—contract the size of government. 
Hon Anne Tolley 
: Absolutely.  
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: “Absolutely” says the Minister. There is the agenda laid clear. National believes that you can cut and sell your way out of a hole—sell the assets cut government past the bone. The Government delivers services that help the economy. A zero Budget is what you get when the economy is failing. A zero Budget is an admission by the Government that it does not have a plan that is working. National’s economic policy if you can call it that is simply selling assets selling farms crony deals and pokies. New Zealand deserves a whole lot better than that.  
Mr Key has said “sticking to a plan that is working”. Well it is very hard to believe that. We should call that the “Yeah right” Budget—the “Yeah right” Budget! The plan that is working apparently means unemployment up by 43 percent leaving 150000 New Zealanders out of work. It apparently means 140000 New Zealanders who have left the country because they cannot stand to wait for the brighter future the Government has let them down on. Over 1000 a week are voting with their feet because they have given up hope on their own homeland. That is 1000 a week whose children will not be living in the same country as their grandparents. Prices have gone up four times faster than wages and real incomes are falling. New Zealand has had its first credit rating downgrade in 13 years the first since the last time Mr English was finance Minister. It is amongst the lowest-performing economies in the OECD under National right down there with Greece. In fact it is 29th out of 34 just below Greece on the rankings. There are 50000 more people on benefits costing over $1 billion a year extra. The number of children living in benefit-dependent households has increased by over 32000. The median income has gone down $82 a week under National—$82 a week worse off in real terms after inflation under National. I do not call that a brighter future. My family would not call that a brighter future. Ordinary New Zealanders do not call that a brighter future. It is a bleaker future. 
National has failed to grow the economy. The mantra that the crucial thing is to cut government reveals the fatal flaw in National’s approach. It thinks its job is to balance the Government’s books. Its job is to balance the country’s books. Its job is to help New Zealanders live better lives through a prosperous economy decent work and decent incomes. It is not primarily to balance the Government’s books which at best—although we would do it too—is a means to an end. That is why the country’s economy has grown less than 1 percent since John Key took office—less than 1 percent in nearly 4 years. In the last year we have seen the magic disappearing $2 billion. National campaigned on a $1.5 billion surplus by 2015 yet in the last week we have found out that it is going to be a $640 million deficit. That is $2 billion gone in just 6 months. The reality is that you cannot cut services or people fast enough to race down that hill as fast as that budget is disappearing because austerity economics does not work.  
Look I was fascinated to read through  
The Economist 
 magazine and find an article on growth. “There is an alternative to austerity”  
The Economist  
says. When you read that in  
The Economist 
 and you have got this Government presiding over a $2 billion Budget hole in 6 months you know something is wrong. You know something is deeply deeply wrong and here is the reason it is wrong: you cannot cut and sell your way out of a hole. A zero Budget means failure because you have got no other alternative. A zero Budget is occurring because the Government has lost $2 billion in the last 6 months.  
It gets worse. Nick Smith said: “Where’s the money coming from?”. That is a fair enough question. Here is where it is not coming from. It is not coming from that $2 billion the Government just lost. It is not coming from the $200 million of ticket clippers’ fees from selling the assets our parents built up. That is where it is not coming from. It should not be coming from flogging the family silver. That is like selling your house to pay the mortgage and then renting a more expensive one. Sell your house to pay the mortgage and then rent for more than you were paying. Is that not brilliant? Brilliant! That is why Bill English is not Prime Minister. He got 2 percent last time. Soufflé does not rise twice for Bill English does it?  
I tell you where else it is not coming from: it does not come from selling our land. This Government thinks it can milk the cows to prosperity but at the same time it is selling off the land the cows are milking from. Go figure—go figure. It is about value not volume. It is about smarts not grass. It is about the future not the past. Of course the dairy industry is important but—hello—dairy prices fell 2.5 percent yesterday. We have too many cows in one basket. If we want to have a vital growing high-value economy we need to do what the ratings agencies have told us. Moody’s Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s agree that New Zealand has an under-diversified economy and too much private debt. National’s answer? Reduce the diversity and increase private debt even more! Ridiculous! And why is it always the small household that pays? Why does the ordinary Kiwi pay through fewer services and more GST to make up the $2 billion hole National just caused and the $200 million of asset-stripping ticket clippers it is funding? I would love to see when the kickbacks are revealed from that lot. This is crony capitalism at its very worst.  
The legion of dishonour is growing by the week—Banks-Dotcom Skycity. We almost do not even need to explain because the public understands. Look at those members looking at their feet—looking at their feet. Here is the country struggling here are New Zealanders trying to make ends meet and there is National doing sweet deals for the big end of town and breaching good process. That is why that radical socialist Colin James said on TV that businesses are asking themselves whether the rules of the road have changed. Do you have to do a private deal with John Key rather than rely on a Ministry of Economic Development Budget process? MediaWorks and Ministers doing fee remissions for companies they used to personally own. Appointing the Prime Minister’s personal electoral chairman to the board of the broadcasting funder. Selling the telecommunications law to fund a process National did not have the gumption to write for itself. The league of dishonour goes on and on. 
To conclude a zero Budget is what you get when your economy is failing. It is what you have instead of a real plan for growth and jobs.