Nash Stuart: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Nash Stuart: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3972] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I find myself in the unique situation of standing to support the Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill under urgency after standing to oppose the original bill the Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill under urgency less than 6 months ago. It is a strange situation which anyone with half an eye on the global economic situation could have predicted 8 months ago. But first of all I say to Dr Pita Sharples that 80 percent of his constituents got nothing out of the tax cuts. Pita Sharples sold his people out. Is that fair? No not at all. 
I would like to talk about one thing in my 10 minutes’ speaking time: the fact that Mr Key and Mr English knew of the impending economic crisis and its potential impact upon the New Zealand economy yet they never pulled back from their tax cut package during the last days of the election campaign. This is not right and it is simply not fair. I think it is quite interesting to note that today ANZ and the National Bank upped their interest rates on the day that we were given a jobs Budget. Will those two major banks upping their interest rates help the ordinary Kiwi bloke? Of course it will not. 
I know that Mr Key and Mr English are smart men. Let us give credit where credit is due. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why? 
STUART NASH 
: I will tell the member. Someone like Mr Key who made significant money in international finance knows about risk management and the fundamentals behind assessing financial risk. Mr Key knows how to read economic forecasts and future financial trends probably better than anyone in this House except for David Cunliffe Mr Mallard and Mr Horomia. That is how our Prime Minister made his fortune—by trading. It is all about assessing risk then putting in place strategies to mitigate and beat the odds. A lot of it is about bluff and big balls because if they get it wrong it can go spectacularly wrong and many in this game do not succeed. We have ample evidence of this in the collapse of Mr Key’s old firm Merrill Lynch. 
The fact that Mr Key made so much money analysing and then beating the odds means he was probably pretty good at it—in fact pretty damn good at it. Good on him! He was a good money market trader. He knew how to play the odds. But did he play us? Were the voters of New Zealand simply lines of data on a spreadsheet to be manipulated in the same way that was used in an attempt to manipulate data on the international currency movements? Were the voters of New Zealand who ticked National on election day taken for a ride on the promise of tax cuts? That is an interesting question and now it appears we have our answer. 
Let us look at Mr English. Sure he is as machiavellian as they come. He would have to be to become leader of the National Party after previously being the Minister of Finance in charge when fiscal management mistakes were made over the handling of the last recession suffered by this country in the late 1990s. Luckily that recession was cyclical and not structural which basically means that our export markets held up and we could trade our way out of it. This recession is structural which basically means that the fundamental way we do business both in New Zealand and globally has changed. It has to change. But Mr English was not quite machiavellian enough. He got rolled for the leadership by the right-wing ideologue Ruth Richardson masquerading as Don Brash after being trounced in the 2002 election by a Prime Minister who knew the country wanted substance and vision. Mr English could provide neither nor can he today. 
When Don Brash’s time was up Mr English got rolled again by another very smart odds and numbers man in John Key. That must have hurt. [ 
Interruption 
] I ask Dr Coleman what we the people of New Zealand have ended up with today. We have a money market trader who understands risk management and therefore is an expert manipulator as Prime Minister and a machiavellian man who has not quite the grasp of political or economic philosophy or numbers as Minister of Finance. Let us face it. If he knew the numbers he would be Prime Minister now and he would not have been rolled by Brash and then passed over by his colleagues for Key. Ouch! 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: He’s just read the Budget today. I think it’s a lot more fun than the Opposition. 
STUART NASH 
: In October of last year when Dr Coleman was out there telling his constituents that under National they would get tax cuts these two puppet masters—let us call them “M and M”: the manipulator and the machiavellian the then Leader of the Opposition and the then deputy leader of the National Party—were reading  
The 
Economist 
 magazine. It was commenting at the time on the state of the global and the New Zealand economy. “M and M” would have no doubt read the following from  
The Economist 
. On 29 October last year a little over a week before New Zealand’s general election it stated: “After the most eventful and creative six weeks in the history of central banking a half-point interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday October 29th was almost anti-climactic. Nonetheless it was an important strike at the deepening recessionary forces surrounding the American economy … Within America the financial crisis is showing signs of easing but the economic crisis is only just starting as the Fed broadly acknowledged. ‘The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly … Moreover the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint.’ ” 
Let us go over that again: “the economic crisis is only just starting” “The pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly” and “the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint.” This is all in the world’s largest economy—the global engine room. I can picture how this went. “M and M” would have sat down over a coffee in the manipulator’s office. Key says to English: “This is bad Bill. The world is going to hell in a handbasket and we are promising tax cuts that will be totally unaffordable. I have done the numbers and it won’t work.” English says to Key: “For God’s sake John. It’s about winning this election at all costs. Let’s promise them the world and when we get in we can tell them whatever we want. Key then says to English: “So if we fool them all can I become Prime Minister Bill?”. English says to Key: “In name yes John. Now go out there and tell the people what they want to hear. And that stuff about the ides of March is just a story; we all love you John.” 
I tell members that “ 
The M and M Show 
” knew exactly what it was doing and rushing the original tax bill through Parliament was all part of the plan. In my humble but educated opinion the voters of New Zealand were hoodwinked in a way that only the National leadership can do. I say to Dr Coleman that National would do anything to get elected. It is cynical politics. The people of New Zealand need to know this and today they have found it out. 
I am rapt about this bill because it means that Napier will return to Labour. I am sorry for Mr Tremain but there is nothing wrong with being a list MP. This bill is not what the people of New Zealand voted for. 
Craig Foss 
: Come on what odds? 
STUART NASH 
: If I win Napier I will give Mr Foss my tax cut next year and the year after. Oh hold on a second they have just been cancelled! 
I remember sitting opposite Mr English at the Finance and Expenditure Committee and asking him whether in light of the fast-deteriorating global economic crisis National was still going to push through its tax cut legislation. Mr English’s response was that it would because it is what the voters voted for. Well Mr English has now taken away what the voters voted for and hence has taken away the reason he thinks National won. What will he tell the people of New Zealand who put him there on the promise of a tax cut? 
“M and M”—the manipulator and the machiavellian—are now in a spot of bother. They are in a catch-22 as they are shown to be either the master manipulator and the machiavellian who misled the majority of the masses or slightly slow. What would they rather be—sneaky or simple standard or poor? It is not for me to decide but I can tell members that my mates have called me and texted me about this situation and they are not particularly happy. When I said to them that they knew this was going to happen and that tax cuts were not affordable most said that they knew that but they did not really think—they trusted Key. But no more. They say that the honeymoon is over and the love is gone. To “ 
The M and M Show 
” I say that 2011 cannot come quick enough to get rid of the show of broken promises. The people of New Zealand know that this is simply not fair. Thank you.