English Bill: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnglish Bill: General Debate[Sitting date: 10 October 2007. Volume:642;Page:12229. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National): Mr Assistant Speaker—Darren Hughes: Old “Fire Sale Bill”.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the member forOtaki has just found out he will certainly lose his seat because today the Labour Government said there will be no private money for Transmission Gully. Dr Cullen has said he will not borrow a dollar. So the only way the people of Wellington and the Kapiti Coast can get Transmission Gully is with about a 50c regional petrol tax.Hon Maurice Williamson: At least!Hon BILL ENGLISH: It will probably be more my colleague Maurice Williamson tells me. So the member opposite should keep his head down. He lost his seat certainly today; if there was any doubt about it then yesterday.It highlights the way the Labour attack has fizzled out in its own incoherence. Those members have turned out to be not just a bunch of hysterics but also a bunch of hypocrites.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member knows he cannot use that word.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I withdraw. It turns out that Labour is doing public-private partnerships everywhere. Now the definition of a public-private partnership is that if it is built by the private sector then it is a public-private partnership. Well that means every school and hospital in New Zealand is a public-private partnership. The fact is that Labour is burdened by its clichés of the past and they are dragging it down.Over the next 10 years New Zealand needs billions of dollars of infrastructure investment for a growing economy and Labour has ruled out the main sources of funds for doing that. So I question how Dr Cullen will be able to cut taxes if he needs all the money to build Transmission Gully and to fund all the roading that is required in Auckland. How will he cut taxes if he will not borrow any money for infrastructure or use any private money for infrastructure? He will have to use cash surpluses.Hon Murray McCully: It will come from the tooth fairy.Hon BILL ENGLISH: He will get it from the tooth fairy and only the tooth fairy believes anything that Dr Cullen says about tax cuts.In October last year Dr Cullen said: “People who think there should be tax cuts on the back of big surpluses should be taken out and drowned.” Is that a suicide note; did he predict his own demise? You see Dr Cullen promises tax cuts in an election year and then after the election he cancels them because he wants the money. It is as simple as that and he will do it all again. But whose money is it?Well the massive surplus announced today is paid for by people on $39000 who pay 33c in the dollar—the rich man’s tax rate! When Labour came to office those people were on $32000. Did Labour promise them they would end up on the rich man’s tax rate under its Government? That is what has happened. What are those householdsdealing with? They are dealing with interest rates that have gone up by 4 percentage points since Labour took office and they are now paying 9.25 percent on their mortgages. They have seen electricity prices rise by 25 to 30 percent. In the last couple of months they have seen milk and butter go up by 20 percent.These people are facing a real squeeze on their household budget and what does Helen Clark say? She says: “We are building up the kitty. We are taking hard-earned cash out of your pocket we do not need so we can buy your vote.” and that is why those people have stopped listening. They do not believe Labour any more.Labour members do not care about those people on $39000 paying a rich man’s tax rate. They said yesterday that it is more important for the Government to get the money and decide how to spend it in order to win those people’s votes. That is what is going on here. The Labour Government is preying on middle and low income New Zealanders and wringing tax out of them. Those members are sitting in their flash offices in the Beehive and coming up with grandiose schemes about how to pull a rabbit out of a hat 2 weeks before the election.