Cullen Michael: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Cullen Michael: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16302] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I am loving this! Now we have learnt why National members voted against Working for Families: because it was not a tax cut they say! Although it put more money into people’s pockets they voted against it because it was not a tax cut. Now we can see the National Party mentality. It is a kind of  
Animal Farm 
 mentality: tax cuts good; bigger tax cuts better; putting money into people’s pockets bad. Working for Families equals tax credits for those in employment. In any case even if it did not why would the National Party have voted against it when Mr Brownlee now tries to claim that it is actually a good idea for families to be helped? Indeed National is voting for it this morning—but voted against it previously. 
We also learnt from that speech and from the speech made by Mr Key on  
Morning Report 
 why the National Party manages to have both Gerry Brownlee and Lindsay Tisch in the same caucus. The tax cuts are both too big and too small simultaneously—that is what the National members say. The tax cuts are both Gerry Brownlee and Lindsay Tisch simultaneously. They are so big that I heard previously we might have to borrow but they are so small that they do not make any difference. The National Party will have bigger tax cuts but they will cost less money and it will not have to do anything. This is wonderful! The National Party has spent 9 years in Opposition and it can still come out with that kind of rubbish and expect people to vote for it. 
Mr Brownlee clearly did not hear Mr Key on  
Morning Report  
this morning. He said that tax cuts are not very important any longer—because Labour has introduced tax cuts they are no longer as important as other things—but National will be announcing a big tax cut programme. He says it will not cost any more money—or it might; we do not know. It will be 4 weeks before the election and by then we would have had a pre-election fiscal update; I will be interested to see then whether the National Party believes that it can afford larger tax cuts without large-scale borrowing or without cutting social services. And National will not cut social services but Government spending is sometimes a luxury says Mr Key on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. 
That party thinks that it will go into a coalition agreement with Mr Peters that as part of that coalition agreement Mr Peters will be Minister of Foreign Affairs and that it will cut Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade. Well if National thinks that it had better think again. I can tell National members that it does not work like that and it will not work like that for them. It is no good National picking on the poor old Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade people on the cocktail circuit; it will have to find social services to cut. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right. Mr Hayes agrees. Yes indeed because that is where the big spending is. 
Mr Key said that National might find $500 million over 3 years by slashing the bureaucracy. Well $500 million will not add up to anything much by way of tax cuts. It will not deliver large tax cuts to the people earning over $60000 a year. That “dinky” couple on the radio this morning who are renting in Remuera and finding it hard to make ends meet could move to Glen Eden. It is cheaper out there. It is where my sister lives. They could move there. They would get a cut in their rent there. They are finding it hard. They are saying that two tax cuts of $110 a week will not make much difference to them. I can tell them that it will make a hell of a lot of difference to the people living in Otara in Glen Eden in South Dunedin and in Pirimai in Napier. National is saying that it will give smaller tax cuts to those people it will claw back stages two and three from those people in order to give more money to the people who already have a great deal more. That is called helping families in the National Party guise. 
Labour will fight an election on those grounds with the greatest of joy. We know and National members know from reading the front page of the newspaper that I have not merely stolen their fox but eviscerated it strangled it and thrown it back into their back garden and they do not know what to do about it at that particular point. They do not know where to go and they are praying that something will turn up between now and 4 weeks out from the election. I say “Good luck!”.