English Bill: General Debate 
English Bill: General Debate 
[Volume:646;Page:15724] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Nothing illustrates better Labour’s inability to understand what is affecting New Zealanders in their day-to-day lives than its putting up Trevor Mallard to talk that rubbish. He is a man who used to be scary a man who used to be perceptive and now he is not. 
I observed the Labour Party congress over the weekend and we heard an awful lot about Labour. We heard an awful lot about what Labour wants to do. We heard an awful lot of a song that I am sure we will hear an awful lot more of. Senior Cabinet Ministers were standing around singing a ditty written by a Labour candidate. We heard nothing about what is affecting New Zealanders as we speak. 
What is affecting New Zealanders as we speak is that interest rates are double what they were when Labour took office. What is affecting New Zealanders as we speak is the growing prospect of unemployment particularly in the building industry. Yesterday I spoke to a builder who told me that for the first time in 7 years he had someone knock on his door a month ago looking for a job and he has had five more people do that since. If no lending is going into the property market then no building is being done. If no building is being done then people will lose their jobs. 
The other thing that Labour members are not talking about is rocketing fuel prices. Electricity prices have gone up 5 percent per year in every year that Labour has been in charge. Will that stop now? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What’s your plan for that? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Our plan is not Labour’s plan which is to ignore it and to pretend. We heard Helen Clark yesterday. Her plan is to tell New Zealanders that they have never had it so good. “Pretend we were not in Government.”—that is Labour’s plan. Labour’s plan is that New Zealanders have never had it so good that Labour was never in Government and that this is all about what might happen if people vote for Labour again. I have to say to the member that that plan is not working because interest rates have not stopped going up. 
I ask what Labour members think is happening in households where people are getting notifications from their bank that the money they borrowed at 7.5 percent will be renewed at 10 percent—10 percent. I ask what that member thinks is happening. Does he think those people are thanking Dr Cullen for wasting taxpayers’ money for 8 years and squandering economic growth for forcing their household into a position where they will have to cut back on everything and for telling them on the TV that the Government is taking no notice that they will have to run an overdraft so that Dr Cullen can make promises in the next Budget to make them vote for him? 
That is what is happening. New Zealanders are running overdrafts so that they can pay the tax Dr Cullen will use to try to buy their votes. By my calculations he has about $4 billion to spend in this election. I say to the Labour members that New Zealanders will see that for what it is—the last gasp of a dying Government that has squandered a decade of growth. 
I would ask Labour this question. If Labour is responsible for everything that has happened in the economy in the last 9 years—the growing house values the greater employment the rise in people’s incomes—then why does it not make sure that it does not stop now? Labour members will not make sure that it stops. They cannot make sure it stops because hardly any of those things that have happened are actually due to the Labour Government. 
There will be a big job to do in New Zealand—that is to put away a Government that is in its own words focused entirely on power. That is what Michael Cullen said yesterday. When New Zealanders are suffering and want a growing economy Michael Cullen has said that this was about a contest for power. I am telling him that this is about a contest for a vision for New Zealand over the next 10 years. That is what it is about. It is about raising incomes and raising our economic prospects.