Cunliffe David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5501] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 One of the pivotal moments for me this year was Budget day. I was privileged to be in the Opposition lock-up which is a fairly scant and tawdry affair lasting about 50 minutes. I was thumbing through the Budget documents and at about 10 minutes to 2 I had a sudden panic attack because I thought I must have missed a couple of chapters and it was almost 2 o’clock. I thumbed through the documents and to my relief and then to my concern I realised that I had not missed any chapters and that a chunk was missing. The chunk that was missing was the action plan for recovery—the action plan for growth for jobs and for giving New Zealanders a clear sense of how to get through this time of challenge. 
Amy Adams 
: Oh what nonsense. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No it is not a rolling maul that we need; we need a game plan and any rugby player can tell the difference. The member is from the South Island; she should know. 
The mystery was explained to me this week when it was my privilege to meet with a very senior non-parliamentary member of the National Party hierarchy. After a couple of drinks he leaned across and said: “That John Key is quite a nice guy isn’t he.” I said: “Yes he is quite a nice guy actually.” He said: “He’s a good tactician isn’t he.” I said: “Yes he is a good tactician.” He said: “He’s not much of a strategist though in truth and that’ll probably be his undoing.” I said: “Sir I believe that you’ve hit the nail on the head.” John Key can read a map but he has no compass. There is no compass in the Budget. 
At the end of the day Vote Finance is not about us; it is about them: the New Zealand people. Let me read a few stories about the New Zealand people. In recent months we have heard that we can expect another 60000 to 79000 job losses. We have been told that over 1000 New Zealanders are joining the dole queue every week. In the last few weeks we have seen 60 fellmongery workers in Dunedin lose their jobs through redundancy 190 workers in Gisborne 17 workers in my old town of Timaru at Duncan Ag 33 at Unilever 50 at Formway Furniture 40 at Freightways and 20 at South Canterbury dairy shed builder Anderson and Rooney Engineering. And the Public Service Association says 2000 civil servants have lost their jobs. 
As unemployment grows and job prospects shrink we expect to see coherent action from the Government but we have not seen it. The reason the cycleway was emblematic in Vote Tourism was not as Mr Coleman would have us believe because we are trying to spin that it is a bad idea; it is just an insufficient idea. Anybody who says that a cycleway that reduces 1 day’s worth of job losses for $50 million is an answer to the recession has to think again. 
Budget 2009 the subject of these estimates proves that the Government has no ideas. National was in Opposition for 9 years. One would have thought that it had used that time to set direction. But as people unfortunately said of the Labour Government in the mid-1980s why do they not cut out the middle man and vote for Treasury? The only ideas we have seen came from the distinguished officials themselves. Leadership at the political layer has been so thin that National has had to rely upon officials to at least ask the hard questions. We may or may not agree with the prescription but we sure as heck agree that the problem is real. 
The Government member who just resumed her seat Amy Adams asked why the Opposition does not solve the recession. Excuse me! National was elected. New Zealanders are fair-minded people. They will give the Government a chance to lead and govern and if it is done well then they will give it another chance. Kiwis are fair and decent people. But if National blows it like it is doing by omission then they will let the Government know at the ballot box. 
Budget 2009 did precisely nothing to protect jobs. It failed to invest in people. It failed to develop research science and technology and training. Members on both sides of the House have come from humble beginnings. They are the hard-working children of working-class or challenged families— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Like you mate. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Mr Gilmore is one. But the difference between this side of the House—and I include the Greens—and the Government side as has been amply demonstrated in the area of social development is that when we climb the ladder of social mobility we do not pull it up after ourselves. We are here to make sure that the next generation benefits from the opportunities we have had. That is what we believe—not that we should sell State housing. 
Above all the Government has fundamentally undermined the well-being of our future by deferring New Zealand superannuation for a decade. The superannuation scandal was the big story of Budget 2009 and it is at the heart of Vote Finance today. The solution the Government came up with for the $10 billion problem was to simply kick for touch suspend and put on to future generations—Generation X and Generation Y—the burden of superannuation in the future. Right now one in 7.2 people is drawing that benefit or 7.2 workers for every superannuitant. When the scheme resumes the number will be one in 3.7. If we cannot afford the tax now we will not be able to afford the tax burden then. 
A decade of deferrals has left what will be nearly a $38 billion hole by 2030 and a $60 billion hole by 2050. It cuts in half—by 50 percent according to Treasury figures—the total ability at its worst of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to pay into the benefit stream required. It cuts the ability to pay by 50 percent. The truth is that superannuation was always going to be difficult. It will now be extremely difficult unless the Government takes the lead and says we have to start it earlier otherwise the problems will come home to roost for our young. 
Labour’s position is clear. We should continue to pre-fund because through pre-funding we continue to invest dollar cost averaging in markets when they are low. As they build up we will ride the benefit of that investment. Here is the acid test for the Government: it allowed a boat to be floated 2 weeks ago about using the Superannuation Fund capital for investing in social infrastructure. If the Superannuation Fund is such a good idea why does the Government not keep paying into it so it stays strong? National cannot have its cake and eat it too. 
Do members not love the pledge card? The pledge card was the signed promise from Mr Key that he guaranteed 3 years of tax cuts. That promise was made 6 weeks after Lehman Brothers folded. It was after Merrill Lynch the Prime Minister’s old firm got in trouble but he kept the charade going. National threw Parliament into urgency before Christmas to deliver a third of the benefits to the top 3 percent of income earners and to pass a law that stated that 71 percent of New Zealanders get nothing. I repeat: if people did not earn over $40000 they did not get a penny out of the incoming Government. It was all to be in the next 2 years but that suddenly melted away. I believe that in their heart of hearts the incoming National Government knew that it could not deliver those tax cuts hence the urgency to get the charade bedded in before Christmas. 
Budget 2009 lifted the veil of ignorance from the eyes of New Zealanders and most Kiwis being decent people said that the tax cuts were a bad idea at the start and good riddance to them. They realised the pledge card promise was a con but now they ask themselves how if that promise was a con they can believe anything the Government says. If its credibility looked a bit shaky after the broken tax promise and superannuation promise it was not looking too crash-hot by the middle of this week for reasons we do not need to go into today. The Government’s credibility does not look too crash-hot this week does it? 
New Zealanders are starting to lose trust in the integrity of a Government that came in promising them that nothing much they liked would change except KiwiSaver. National thought KiwiSaver was a good idea but it gutted it in half. It liked economic development but it cut the vote.