Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Volume:671;Page:17543] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 The Opposition joins with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport who has just spoken in acknowledging the Christchurch memorial service the loss of life from the earthquake and of course the presence of the Australian Prime Minister Opposition leader and Governor-General which was deeply appreciated. 
But that is where our agreement with the Minister of Finance stops because his next statement was that National was going to stay the course. Well that raises the obvious question: which course will National stay? Is it last week’s course when it was putting the whole cost of the earthquake on “Bill’s bill”—putting it on the plastic carrying it all as debt? That was too much for the Greens who came out and said that National was fiscally irresponsible and the International Monetary Fund agreed. That was too much for John Key; he had to go on nationwide TV overrule his Minister and say: “No you’re not Bill; I’m slashing your Budget to zero.” As Russel Norman has pointed out today that is a real-terms cut that will hurt New Zealanders deeply. 
Then Mr English trotted out the same old furphy about rebalancing. But I say that National’s recession is because of National’s mismanagement. It is not because of rebalancing because the bad news which was proved by the Reserve Bank last week is that rebalancing has not actually started yet. Households and businesses in New Zealand owe more debt today than they did last year and more debt today than they did when National took office and under National will not actually start turning a corner until 2013. So it is not rebalancing—at least not yet. The economy is going backwards because the Government has no plan. It is changing and it is lurching all over the road as we have seen in the last couple of weeks. 
But at a time when commodity prices are at all-time highs and when our biggest trading partners—Australia and Japan—are doing well we should be moving forward. But we are not because National has mismanaged the economy. There is no growth jobs are being lost families are under pressure prices are rising and people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. 
Su’a William Sio 
: We’re going backwards. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: We are going backwards. It is time that this Government took responsibility. Economic commentators have pointed out the obvious. On 13 March one commentator wrote: “If bombed-out economies like the US and the UK are showing strong signs of investment-led recovery why can’t we?” and a further comment was made that “This new recession is the Government’s—it must own up.” We agree. There is no plan. The tax switch did not work. Giving $43 million a week in tax cuts to the top 10 percent of taxpayers was lunacy. It took that money out of circulation it meant people lost jobs and it added to debt at a time when New Zealanders could least afford it. 
The Minister of Finance said he inherited a reasonably strong position and he did. Labour left the books in credit to the tune of 4.7 percent of GDP as he said for a rainy day. The rainy day came but unfortunately he milked it for tax cuts for people who did not need them. That is why National is having to cut the Budget in 2011 to zero which is a real-terms cut. 
Here is another lurch. Just a month ago National said that the biggest problem facing the country was savings and that this Budget would be about savings. That was pretty ironic then because it had already cut a billion dollars out of KiwiSaver incentives and had cut—wait for it—$42 billion cumulatively out of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: How much? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: National took $42 billion out of the Superannuation Fund according to the Treasury documents put to the Finance and Expenditure Committee by the Retirement Commissioner taking the level of funding down to only 57 percent of its previous level. That is incredible. National has beggared New Zealand superannuation. 
Then National members said that this Budget would be about savings and that they were going to implement the Savings Working Group report. Guess what? The tax sweeteners in the Savings Working Group report all cost around a billion dollars each like indexation. How will they afford that under John Key’s zero Budget? Where is that billion dollars coming from? It might be coming from KiwiSaver. KiwiSaver has been the single most successful savings plan in New Zealand history and this Government is going to wreck it. Government members will wreck it even more than they have because they do not know their economic backside from their economic elbow.