Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Goff Phil: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:668;Page:15151] 
2. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Has he reviewed table 1 in the latest report from the 2025 Taskforce; if so does he stand by his statement that the wage gap with Australia is reducing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes; and yes. If the member takes a look at table 1 he will see that it does not refer to wages. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does he stand by his statement that a “fundamental purpose” of his Government is to narrow the wage gap between ourselves and Australia; if so does he accept that the 2025 Taskforce actually shows that he is failing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes we do stand by that statement; and no we do not accept that about the 2025 Taskforce. In the shorter term the measure of real after-tax wages shows that the gap is closing but the member needs to keep in mind that the Government has had to deal with two substantial issues. One is the economic mismanagement of the previous Labour Government which left this economy in a mess. That was followed by a global recession. In that context we have made a very good start. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How does the Prime Minister reconcile that answer with the explicit statement by the task force: “… we do not see any realistic possibility that the gap in real per capita income has narrowed in the past year.”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is curious to hear that member quoting Don Brash— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say to the Minister that I have let him get away with an earlier answer that claimed that certain policies were the policies of the Opposition then dumping on them. That question was a perfectly fair question because the task force was established by the Government. There was nothing political in asking the Minister about statements contained in the task force’s report. The questioner was not being political and the Minister does not need to give the questioner a lecture about those sorts of things. The Minister should answer the question. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I disagree with the task force. It has not taken account of the decade of damaging economic management by the previous Government or of the global recession. In that context to achieve an increase in real after-tax wages has been quite an achievement. There is no doubt at all that if we followed the policies of the previous Labour Government New Zealand’s economic performance would continue to drop like a stone. 
Chris Tremain 
: How has real after-tax wage growth been tracking in New Zealand compared with that in Australia? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Between September 1999 and September 2008 real after-tax wages in New Zealand grew by only 3 percent in that 9-year period compared with 19 percent growth in Australia. The wage gap blew out substantially. Since September 2008 real after-tax wages have grown by 8 percent in New Zealand compared with 5 percent in Australia so the wage gap has narrowed slightly. As I said before we started a long way behind Australia having been handicapped by a decade of economic mismanagement and this is just one small gain. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can he name any independent economic commentator who accepts his spin that the wage gap with Australia is narrowing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The calculations that the Government has done on real after-tax wages are based on the statistical series legislated for by the Labour— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will understand that the question was straightforward. I asked him whether he could name one independent economic commentator who accepted his view on the wage gap narrowing. He has not addressed the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I must say I have considerable sympathy for the honourable Leader of the Opposition. It is just unfortunate that he added the last bit about “spin” to his question because if the member had cut his question short to the first part I would have insisted on the Minister answering. Once the last part was added it makes my job hard. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Any commentator who looks at the statistics used to calculate national superannuation will come to the same conclusion as we have. I cannot name one commentator who believes that following Labour’s policies would do anything but send us to the bottom of the OECD table. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister name one independent economic commentator who agrees with his position that the wage gap with Australia is narrowing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As I said before any commentator who looks at the real after-tax wage series— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member on this occasion asked a very specific question. The answer may be that the member cannot name a commentator but he should not rabbit on about stuff that is not the subject of the question. [ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. The Standing Orders are very clear about that point; information should not be included in an answer that is not necessary to answer the question. I have been pretty generous to the Minister and have allowed him to get away with a lot of comments about the Opposition’s policies. The Opposition has now asked a very straight question of the Prime Minister. The Minister is answering on his behalf; he should answer the question. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As I said any commentator who looks at the facts on real after-tax wages will have to come to the conclusion that the gap has closed. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member if I heard the question correctly—and do forgive me if I am wrong—asked whether the Prime Minister could name any credible commentator who believed that the wage gap with Australia was closing. It may be that the Minister cannot name one but he should answer the question that was asked. There is nothing wrong with not being able to name one but it is not within the Standing Orders to include other information that is not the subject of the question that was asked. I have allowed a fair bit of licence. The Minister has dumped several times on the Opposition and has made claims about the state the country would be in if Labour’s policies had been pursued. In fact one of those answers was to a question from one of the Minister’s own colleagues. That is not in my view the way that questions from colleagues should be used—just to dump on the Opposition. The Opposition has asked a straight question; I believe it deserves to hear an answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not think any commentators have looked at those figures. When they do look at them they will be forced to the correct conclusion: real after-tax wages grew by 3 percent in 9 years under the previous Government and they have grown by 8 percent in 2 years under this Government. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Which of these apparently contradictory statements is correct: the statement in the National-ACT confidence and supply agreement that sets out the closing of the income gap with Australia as being a “concrete goal” or Mr Key’s or Mr English’s more recent statements that this is merely an “aspirational goal”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: ACT and National both agree that New Zealand can achieve parity by 2025 and that we should take all steps to achieve that. We know that the first steps have been to undo the incredible damage done to this economy— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was again quite straightforward: is this a goal that is simply aspirational or is it concrete? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well they are both— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister should not be answering when he has not been called because a point of order is being considered. If the Acting Prime Minister is prepared to assist the House it would be helpful if he could now answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: They are both correct. ACT and National both agree that the recipe followed by the previous Labour Government gave us reductions in real after-tax income a shrinking export sector and a bloated Government sector and put us on a path towards the bottom of the OECD ladder. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Which promise is more credible: his promise to catch up with Australia or his promise not to raise GST? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Both of those promises are promises that the Government is adhering to. If the member is opposed to the rise in GST he is free to go out to Mana and announce Labour’s new policy: to cut GST and take away the income tax cuts. As far as I am aware the member has not been brave enough to do that. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How is he adhering to his promise not to increase GST when he has just increased it by 2.5 percent? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As the member knows there was much discussion over those quotes and as is usual with the Labour Party members they are making them up. The Prime Minister answered a question— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was again quite straightforward and a series of attacks were made on the Opposition but there was no endeavour to answer the question. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well I will hear the Minister on the point of order. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I was dealing with the regular issue now whereby the Opposition manufactures quotes. We have the choice of either just ignoring manufactured quotes like this one today and one yesterday that was applied to me or of trying to deal with them. It is in the public interest that there is clarity over whether the assertion made by the Opposition is correct or not correct. In this case I attempted to clarify it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear the Minister and that is a valid point. When a question contains a quote that gives a misleading impression a Minister can certainly correct that—I have no problem with that at all. But there is a difference between correcting that and just dumping on the questioner. Today it is my view that the Minister has attempted to dump on the questioner a little too much on the wrong questions. Some questions invite a political response and others do not. That last question I believe did have an element of politics in it. The reason why it had an element of politics is that anyone who has been around this House for a while would know the quote was taken from a wider context and the wider context was left out of the quote. But the Minister in answering the question should deal with that and not just dump on the questioner. That is the way to handle that kind of question if this House is to avoid excessive disorder. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think there is one further point. I accept that there is always a context to quotes but I think there is a difference between taking a quote out of context and manufacturing a quote which was the accusation. That I think is the equivalent of misleading the House and that accusation should not be made across the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think under the circumstances we should let things lie where I have ruled but I do understand the point that the member makes. There is a difference between manufacturing a quote and taking a quote out of context and I think the Minister should not have alleged that anyone was manufacturing quotes. I understand the concern about taking a quote out of context but the way to deal with that is to demonstrate the way in which it is out of context rather than just dump on the questioner unless the quote is used in a highly political way. Then I will not protect questioners and Ministers are free to deal with questioners in a reasonable way if they are foolish enough to make a question highly political. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am waiting to get the answer to the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Some time has passed so I will invite the honourable Leader of the Opposition to repeat his question. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: To the best of my memory the question was: how does he reconcile the statement that the Government is adhering to its promise not to increase GST when he said “National will not be increasing GST”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister never said that. He said he would not increase GST in order to close the deficit. What we did was to increase GST in order to pay for income tax cuts because we had to rebalance this economy from excessive consumption debt and excessive Government spending which occurred in the last decade to a focus on savings investment exports and a better reward for work which will be the tone of growth in the next decade. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek the leave of the House to table both the video and the transcript in which the Prime Minister says National will not be increasing GST and another quote that goes something like this: that a half-good Government— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member will not use points of order to try to score his political point.