Foss Craig: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — Third Reading 
Foss Craig: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:272] 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 What a great great day this is for New Zealand. It is perhaps a sad sad day for members opposite but it is a great great day because we have seen democracy in action. Over 1 million New Zealanders gave their party vote to National and at the election National laid out its personal tax cuts plan to New Zealand. It also laid out its KiwiSaver plan and its research and development plan to New Zealand. What a great day this is. We are seeing democracy in action and those measures will be delivered tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning once the third reading of the Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill has been voted on. Many members are now waking up after the previous speech. But goodness gracious who knows how many listeners have turned off the radio because that speech was an absolute shocker? No doubt Mr Jones is doing the numbers again tonight. 
I was not going to mention debt ratios again because I think I have mentioned them a few times but unfortunately the previous speaker the Hon David Cunliffe brought them up again. I have to ask whether Labour members read or saw the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. Did they look at the statistics? Labour members are stuck in the time warp of the previous administration’s May 2008 Budget which had debt to GDP ratios of about 17 to 18 percent—that is quite right. But then everything started to unravel and the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update showed us a decade of deficits that were nudging 30 percent and with the recent announcements that are now coming out of the fiscal closet the deficits will quite possibly go higher than that. The previous speaker was in total denial of that. We would perhaps listen to you a bit more if you put yourself in today with the— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Point of order! 
CRAIG FOSS 
: Excuse me Mr Deputy Speaker I did bring you into the debate and I apologise for that. Thank you Mr Hughes; I acknowledge that this has been a long day. I ask that members opposite and in particular the Opposition spokesperson on finance take note of the latest fiscal accounts available to the public and to all of us here in this building then frame his comments and speeches around the latest updates and perhaps any other secrets that those members know. 
We listened to a tirade before but we have to face the fact that New Zealand is a capital-deficient nation. We know that. We have a savings issue in New Zealand. Both parties acknowledge that and everyone has spoken about it but the previous speaker started to talk about the New Zealand Superannuation Fund again. He has a problem with something that National again placed before the public. We said we would ask the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation to invest 40 percent of the fund within the boundaries of New Zealand. We are a capital-deficient nation and a savings-deficient nation so I ask why someone would not endorse the fact that we are trying to keep more of that capital within these borders rather than funding the motorways and tunnels of Australia. 
Although the previous speaker did clarify matters later he also tried to give us a lecture about the multiplier effects and other things this morning. He did seem to correct himself a bit later so I will give him credit for doing that but the logical conclusion of what he said—his true colours were revealed—was that tax hikes were better than tax cuts. If members read his speech in  
Hansard 
 they will see that is exactly what he was saying this morning. 
I will make a couple of further points. I think two speakers on the other side of the House have talked about bloggers. Well there is one way to get into the blogging space and that is to talk about bloggers so that will be highlighted somewhere tonight. I do not know the site that another member was talking about. I ask a question of the previous speaker about bloggers. I ask whether he was talking about The Standard the union-engineered and funded blogging site. Which blogging site was he talking about? Many of those sites have gone quiet now that many of the previous Government’s employees have moved out of the Beehive. 
Finally I round off my speech by commenting on the issue of process. I have noted in other speeches in various readings of this bill that this plan was presented to New Zealand before the election and during the election and that the public resoundingly endorsed the plan. It is our 100-day commitment to New Zealand and we are delivering on that plan right now. Because we listened to the public then we are acting upon that plan now. I have a bit of advice for members on the other side of the House. If they get out of denial and into the real world and if they start to listen to real New Zealanders they may start to do quite well.