Cunliffe David: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate[Sitting date: 26 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11338. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Supplementary EstimatesHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn):Three short minutes to take apart what that member thinks is economic policy—Jami-Lee Matenga “Soprano” Ross who complains that New Zealand is worse than Greece and Spain. By next year we are going to have a worse current account deficit than Greece on National’s watch. National the party that has never run a surplus in 15 years and Labour which has never run a fiscal deficit. Who do you trust: Labour which has never run a deficit or National which cannot run a surplus? Those members say we are the anti-growth party. Take 30 years of data. It shows that New Zealand’s economic growth rates are higher under Labour than under National.This is the wind-up of the supplementary estimates debate. I want to say two things about revenue. The first is that it is great to have a body as august as the OECD validate Labour’s tax policies because in its survey of New Zealand it has said two hugely important things. The first is—duh—that New Zealand needs a capital gains tax. We are one of only three countries in the developed world that does not have one and not having one makes our property roller coaster worse. But those cynical National Party people are banking that their political success is all about the propertied middle class not getting too worried before the election. Let us hope that their balloon is burst.The OECD warned us that the New Zealand tax system is contributing to one of the worst levels of inequality in the Western World. That is the fault of this Government which gave huge tax breaks to the rich and put up GST for everybody else. The top 10 percent got 40 percent of the winnings and the poor paid more tax and that is wrong. That is like Robin Hood in reverse.I have got only a minute left. I just want to point to a couple of icebergs that are coming right at the revenue portfolioTitanic that the august Todd McClay the glossy chap down the back has just picked up. The first one is the billion-dollar bungle that is about to happen—the billion-dollar rebuild of the Inland Revenue Department computer which is going to make Novopay look like a walk in the park. The word is that the Government has already got Steven Joyce to do that bit of Todd McClay’s portfolio because it can see that it is a disaster waiting to happen.The second one is the Government’s sweet deals for its mates like MediaWorks which under theAlescocase I understand—I am advised—agreed that it would pay a $22 million tax debt. But under its restructuring that has somehow been forgotten except that the Prime Minister thinks that that is OK because it is powerful. Well that is the sort of behaviour that undermines the integrity of the New Zealand tax system and I expect the Minister of Revenue to take a call and tell us in the very next call why that is wrong. If he has got any integrity he will stare down his boss and say that he will not intervene in the MediaWorks tax dispute.Hon Todd McClay: No I can’t.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: He is saying he will not. That is good. Tell it to John Key—you might be the shortest-lived Minister in the history of the Government—because he has just said that a wet bus ticket will be just fine.The other iceberg coming down the track is the tax-finance interface. The OECD said three things really clearly. It said we need to get a strong savings rate because we have got a savings deficit and it is growing; to make superannuation sustainable; and to have a realistic exchange rate so that we can grow manufacturing. All of that is in Labour’s policy.Labour is the better economic manager. History proves it. Do not believe the spin from the intoxicated National Party. Labour is the party of growth jobs and fairness—long may it be.