Cunliffe David: General Debate 
Cunliffe David: General Debate 
[Volume:654;Page:3868] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 It is a bit rich to be lectured about honesty by a party in Government that campaigned on tax cuts it knew it could not afford. It was selling a lie to the New Zealand public. That lie was under the signature of John Key. The lie was that you can have everything you have got under Labour you can have Working for Families you can have transport— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Speaker does not wish to have some of those things. I did not pull the honourable member up a moment ago when he was getting very marginal about what he was saying as well. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The Speaker is wise and I apologise. National told New Zealanders that they could have Working for Families protected superannuation and 3 years’ worth of tax cuts as well. The crime is not in changing that; the crime was in promising it after the IMF told everybody that the world economy was going to heck in a handbasket after Lehman Brothers hit the wall and by the way after the New Zealand Labour Party campaigning for a fourth term in office pruned back its election commitments because we were fiscally prudent and acting with integrity. I ask Mr Joyce to please spare us the lecture on honesty because we have been honest about our promises. 
Tomorrow is Budget day. Tomorrow is a Budget that must be about jobs. It has to be about jobs because ordinary decent hard-working New Zealanders are living in fear of losing theirs. I understand that this week alone 1250 extra people registered for unemployment—1250 New Zealanders. Their families their livelihoods their dignity their homes and their mortgages are under threat and what is this Government doing about it? In the last few weeks the Government has been running a campaign to soften up New Zealanders by talking about debt. Government members had the Secretary to the Treasury running around making exaggerated claims about $50 billion of extra debt—shame on them. They even brought in Standard and Poor’s as extras in this great charade. The problem this Government has now is that its public relations campaign fell apart because the ratings agencies themselves said that debt is not New Zealand’s No. 1 problem. We have low debt because the previous Labour Government left this Government with the second-lowest debt in the Western World. We had 17.5 percent gross debt and zero net debt. Most countries would give an arm and a leg for that starting point. Most Governments would want to have that to start with. 
Debt is not the No. 1 problem; I ask members to guess what the real No. 1 problem is. It is the other deficit—the deficit in the real economy. It is the export deficit and it is the jobs deficit. Tomorrow when the Government unveils its great plan it had better be a plan that addresses that deficit. It had better be a plan like Michael Savage’s plan which gave New Zealanders confidence and hope that the end to a recession was in sight. If it does not then it will mean that some extra New Zealanders will lose their jobs and their homes because the balance that this Government has struck will not be the best balance. 
I think all members of this House agree that this will not be an easy Budget. That is beyond dispute. I think all members of this House including the Greens agree that fiscal prudence is required and it certainly would be if Labour was in Government. But the goalposts we have to kick this ball between are on the one hand making sure that we manage prudently and on the other making sure that not one New Zealander unnecessarily loses his or her job because that Government is not doing enough to protect New Zealanders. I want to see no stone left unturned no programme left untested no State house that could have been built left unbuilt and no public transport programme that could have been laid down not laid down because that Government did not have the nerve to face down ratings agencies and take sustainable growth to the furthermost point that it could. 
It is a bit rich to be lectured about honesty by a Government that thinks it is OK to suspend payments into the superannuation fund and to pretend that there will be no cuts to benefits. It is a Government that does not know what it really thinks.