Goff Phil: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Goff Phil: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21277] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 It was a bit rich to hear the Greens who apparently want to spend more money on everything joining the National Party chorus by saying that they want more tax cuts. We have heard from the National Party already that that is the big promise for this election but its members will not tell us what those tax cuts would be and where they would come from. 
We know where the tax cuts would come from and where the money would go. We know that the money would go to the rich because Don Brash has said it would. In fact he said he could spend a third of the surplus and that would cover cutting company tax rates and the top personal tax rate to 30 percent. So we know that the money would go to the rich and we know that it would come from ordinary New Zealanders and from the areas where Government spends most money. 
National superannuation would not be safe from National. It promised in 1990—I remember it; I was on the campaign—that there would be no superannuation cuts. There were no ifs no buts no maybes. What did National do? It increased the surtax to the highest level ever. I remember Lockwood Smith talking about student fees. He said they would be removed and that if they were not removed he would resign. He doubled the fees and he stayed there for 6 years. One cannot trust the National Party. I am sorry that the Greens would choose to align themselves with it. 
This election will be about track record and leadership in Government. It will be about credibility and about vision. On every front it will be the Labour-led Government that wins the support of New Zealanders because of 6 years of competent stable consistent Government. I have been in this House long enough to know that different parties over different times have gone into election campaigns making promises and then have reneged on those promises. Then parliamentarians wonder why their credibility in the wider electorate fell as low as it did. I am proud to have been a member of a Labour-led Government that promised only what it could deliver and delivered on what it promised. That is refreshing in terms of New Zealand’s political history. It is about credibility reliability and trust. 
We know that the National Party is promising everything. It put out a law and order policy and I got my people to cost it. It would spend $722 million more a year on law and order plus $1.8 billion in capital expenditure. Over a 10-year period it would be a $9 billion promise. That from the party that says it will cut taxes and slash Government income! It will spend a whole lot more on law on order—but where will the money come from? Nobody on the National benches will tell us. There is absolute silence from those members. There is not even an interjection from the crowded National benches because they cannot answer that question. We all know that the money would come from ordinary New Zealanders. They would get it in the neck. 
Many New Zealanders will remember the 1990s the age of Ruth Richardson Bill Birch and Jenny Shipley. But they should not forget those who are still in Parliament—Lockwood Smith Bill English David Carter— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Nick Smith. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: —Nick Smith Tony Ryall—all the old failed tired hacks from the past who expect us to believe them now. Tony Ryall is the only Minister of Justice in this country’s history who has faced a referendum on his term as Minister of Justice. In that referendum 92 percent of New Zealanders showed that they had no time for the absolute and abysmal failure of the National Government to deliver. We have delivered in law and order. We have delivered the lowest crime rates in 23 years. We have delivered the best police resolution rates in 22 years. We have now put another 1200-plus police staff into the police force. Compare that with National’s plans which we uncovered when we became Government to slash police numbers by 540 to pay for the failed INCIS scheme! How can National have credibility when its members look at their track record of their failure to deliver? We can stand proudly beside our track record and say that we have delivered for this country. 
 Let us look at what we have delivered. We have delivered the best growth rates that this country has seen in decades. For 4 years in a row we have had higher growth than our bigger cousins across the Tasman in Australia. We have delivered 260000 additional jobs—260000 more New Zealanders able to pay their way able to contribute through the taxation system and able to improve their standards of living and the strength of the county. We have lowered poverty and we will lower it further. That is something we are particularly proud of. We will pull from a third to a half of kids currently living under the poverty line out of that poverty through the Working for Families package. 
That is something to be proud of—not big tax cuts for former Governors of the Reserve Bank chief executives or merchant bankers. That is what the National Party stands for. Its leader and its finance spokesperson are former bankers and they are standing up for the rich and powerful giving them all the assistance they need—or do not need as the case may be. They are ignoring the people on the ground who need the help—the kids who need a decent education and the people in the health system who need better health-care. 
And that is what Labour has delivered; we have cut the cost of going to a doctor. That is the key thing that saw people end up in hospital—because they could not afford to get to the doctor. Through primary health organisations we have lowered the cost. We have lowered the cost of pharmaceuticals. We have committed to delivering more operations; more orthopaedic and cataract operations are provided for in the latest Budget. We are making New Zealanders healthier. People are better off under Labour and when they think about the choices they will come to that conclusion. 
We have delivered paid parental leave. We are about to deliver 4 weeks’ holiday. Don Brash said that he was against that and that the country would go bankrupt but when he looked at the polls he thought he had better say he was for it. We know about National in the past saying it is against things changing its mind to make it look as if it is for them and when it is safely elected changing its mind back again. 
Then of course we have the nuclear-free policy. National does not have the courage of its convictions. It has a bill introduced by ACT before the House that says this country will cease to be nuclear-free. A senior National MP told the  
Agenda  
programme on Saturday that Don Brash and most of the National caucus do not believe in a nuclear-free New Zealand. Will they come out and tell New Zealanders that? Not on your life! They know that two to one New Zealanders are in favour of the policy so those members will dissemble about it and betray their promises if they think they can get away with doing that—just as they have done in the past. 
The tax cuts are a myth. Yes of course we would like to pay less tax but we know there is a cost to tax cuts and that cost is a cut in the expenditure that is badly needed for the people of this country. We are giving superannuitants a rates rebate which will be the first decent increase in rates rebates in more than 30 years. We are looking after health needs. We have reversed National’s cuts in superannuation. That would be the first thing to go under National’s policy. We know that what those members are promising simply does not add up. We know that the Australians spent $22 billion on tax cuts last month in their Budget but what did that deliver to the average income earner on between $23000 and $58000 a year? Six dollars a week! In my electorate on 1 April this year families on the average wage with three kids got 55 bucks more a week—$55 more in the pocket to help them meet the needs of their growing families at the time that they need that assistance. 
Those sorts of benefits in real disposable income can never be delivered through tax cuts. Tax cuts would help the wealthy. Tax cuts would mean a cut in the major social expenditure areas of health and education. Tax cuts as the OECD reported to us would end up being inflationary and we would end up with higher interest rates. What the National Party would give on the one hand it would take back in additional interest rates on the other. 
I am proud to be in this party that has delivered for New Zealand. I am proud to be in this party that has competent leadership. Can we remember Don Brash on the foot-and-mouth hoax? He was going to produce what Annabel Young the chief executive officer of Federated Farmers said would have been New Zealand’s Chernobyl. We cannot rely on him. We have a competent and able Prime Minister; we will still have that person as Prime Minister after the election this year.