Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
Cosgrove Clayton: Budget Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16433] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 If we listen to the National Party a number of things become very obvious in this Budget debate. National members have spent every speech trying to unzip it attack it and degrade it and the only compensating factor where they talk about any semblance of their own programme comes down to the use of clichés and platitudes. 
We heard a speech then from Dr Jackie Blue. She said that the National Party has some vision documents on health. When she was challenged on the health policy I wrote the answer down because I thought we would finally get some sort of policy out of the National Party. When challenged on what the health policy encompassed and what its centrepiece was she said this: “We will re-engage with health professionals.” whatever that means. When challenged to explain what that means there was nothing there. There was the empty sound of the baked bean can. There was nothing there. She said: “We will re-engage with health professionals.” 
I recall that at the last election I was standing against the National candidate in my electorate Kate Wilkinson who has done a real clanger today. She has given a policy on KiwiSaver— 
Ron Mark 
: She was telling the truth though. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Mr Mark says she was telling the truth and of course I would not challenge Mr Mark’s word. Ms Wilkinson said that National will do away with the employer contribution. Then out of nowhere came Mr Key. He said: “No we will not.” He did not talk though about what he would do about the Government contribution and for a person on $45000 a year the employer contribution is around $1800. Ms Wilkinson says it will go. John Key says no it will not and that she was not part of the policy process. But hang on—she is in the shadow Cabinet. If she was not in the policy process then we have to ask who is writing the policy. If members of the shadow Cabinet are not donkey deep in writing their own policy then we have to ask who is writing it. 
I recall Ms Wilkinson standing up in cold halls in Oxford and Kaiapoi—Mr Mark was there—and doing a Jackie Blue. People asked what National would do and Ms Wilkinson stood up and said: “We believe in a decent society a just and fair society and that is what we will create.” I suspect Mr Mark beat me to it on one occasion but we both looked at each other and said: “What does that mean? It sounds quite good. Those things are things we would all sign up to.” Then we asked what it meant and there was silence—absolute silence. 
It was a bit like saying: “We will re-engage with health professionals.” Does that mean National will do what we did in this Budget and provide millions of dollars of extra funding? I think that is a really good form of re-engagement with health professionals—not platitudes not clichés but a real form of engagement. 
Will National members do what we have done in education over the past 9 years? Will they build new schools? Will they fix up the leaks and the destruction they rendered on our schools? I remember going into schools in my electorate. I met one principal—in West Eyreton School I think it was—whose office consisted of a few piles of books in a corner of a Skyline garage that doubled as the library thanks to that lot over there. And they talk about re-engagement! 
Re-engagement I say to Dr Jackie Blue is not talking about it producing vision documents producing platitudes and then when challenged not producing a policy. Engagement means one delivers. It means one delivers on one’s promises. It means delivering on one’s policy. It means I say to Dr Jackie Blue that one has a policy. What we know about the National Party’s tax policy as outlined on the day before the Budget is that every taxpayer—and we know that pensioners pay tax—will get 50-plus bucks a week extra under a John Key - Jackie Blue Government. That is what John Key said. The members opposite are very quiet now. Even Dr Mapp who is normally pretty vocal is quiet. 
On the day after the Budget the National Party policy was unwinding like a trout on a fishing line and as we know a trout is a pretty slippery fish. I think that John Campbell summed it up I have to say. I have never seen a quote like this ever. John Campbell said to Mr Key: “I also think you”—that is the leader of the National Party; and members opposite cannot take a point of order over this because John Campbell said it—“are as slippery as a snake in wet grass in terms of telling me where you are going to get the money from to pay for tax cuts.” Those members will not tell us. 
Mr Key went on  
Morning Report 
 and said that National will tell people maybe 6 weeks out from election day. That is what he said. He said that maybe National will tell people 6 weeks out from election day. We know what the rationale and the strategy is for that. It is the same strategy that those members tried last time. The rationale and the strategy is to give no time for the New Zealand people to analyse the voodoo economics they will come up with—no time. We can see the gaunt-looking faces over there now. If those members were so proud and so sure of their tax policy and if it was so much better than ours then they would be out now with the printing presses producing the documents. They would be out with the calculators and they would be telling everybody. 
Ron Mark 
: They would have a shadow Budget. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Mr Mark is asking where the shadow Budget is—and he is right. Where is the alternative Budget that they would have produced? But oh no there is no alternative Budget. It is put up or shut up time. That I say to Dr Jackie Blue is called real engagement with the people. 
Let us look at the tax cuts. I will give members some figures. Here is what Working for Families and the tax cut programme means for ordinary folks. I will give some policy—some detailed policy. For a two-earner family with two kids under 13 and with the parents earning $45000 and $20000 it means that family will get $42.76 per week from 1 October. From 2011 it will be $84.55 a week. For a one-earner family with two children under 13 and with the income earner earning $45000 it means $30.83 per week. For a two-earner family with one child under 13 and with both parents earning $20000 it means $35.16 a week. For a one-earner family earning $45000 and with one child under 13 it means $27.85 a week. That I say to Dr Jackie Blue is called a policy. Not only is it called a policy but also it is called legislation written into law—rock solid granite marble—and it is happening now. 
Then we look at what National members are prepared to tell us. Mr Tisch knows that I am right as he slinks back into his chair. They are prepared to tell the people of New Zealand nothing. What they do is to get up and have a crack. Jackie Blue has had a crack at health. Well here is what independent commentator Russell Brown said about what the Government secured in telecommunications. He said that the Government has “secured an additional $325 million over five years—a much smaller sum than the number National has come up with but one which will be distributed through an established contestable process … It’s also much more realistic and far less vague. It works now without an epochal reorganisation of the entire communications sector.” 
That is what we got out of our Budget. That is called a policy. That is what was announced. That is what is public. The policy of Labour is in those red and white booklets sitting on the Table of the House—volumes and volumes of policy of action and of delivery. What we get from members opposite is that they will re-engage. Last time they disengaged; they disengaged from our elderly folk. Our elderly folk of course benefit too. From 1 October they will benefit by $45.88 per fortnight for a couple and $23.84 for a single person. Will National members re-engage with the elderly? They disengaged from the elderly for the 9 long years they were last in Government. They slashed the pension and lifted the age of eligibility—no ifs no buts no maybes; they dislocated destroyed and disengaged with our elderly population. 
I say to the great engager Dr Jackie Blue and to the communities: do not judge politicians by what they say judge them by their actions. One can judge this side of the House by nine Budgets nine volumes of Budget materials and by promises kept and delivered. And they can judge that crew opposite by what they did last time which was a total dislocation economic vandalism and disengagement—especially from the hothead Nick Smith who has just walked in—from the communities and they will do it again.