English Bill: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
English Bill: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:640;Page:10166] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The response of the Prime Minister today over the issue of standards in the police sums up the moral bankruptcy at the heart of the Labour Government. The people who run the police courses say that the standard of recruits is dropping. The police wrote an internal report which said that the standard of police recruits is dropping and the police were so worried about the conclusions of that report that they spent months keeping it secret. When the Prime Minister was asked today in the House about the standard of police recruits she said that the standard is higher. Actually it is not. In 2004 a new test came in but they are letting a lot more people through it. That is what is happening. There is a new test but they are letting a lot more people through. 
There is absolutely no doubt whom we should believe. We should believe the police who wrote the report and who were so worried about it that they believed they should hide it from the public. It is in the public arena only because the Ombudsman made them put it there. If the standard was higher why did they not just release the report? The Prime Minister is wrong—she knows she is wrong; she said it for the purposes of the House—and the police are right. She misled the public about a matter of public safety again. That means she is putting the political requirements of the Labour Party ahead of public safety. 
But that kind of dishonesty is not unusual. For instance there is the “Minister of Free Childcare for Which There is a Charge”. Actually as the Minister knows about half of the children whom he will count as receiving free early childhood education already get it free because they go to kindergarten. Forty thousand are at kindergarten. In fact the effect of his policy is that the kindergarten movement now has to bring in compulsory payments. It used to be free under the so-called nasty right-wing National Government. Now under the soft left slithery slippery Steve Maharey kindergarten is being turned into childcare by bringing in full-day sessions and they are bringing in charges. That is what it is. The parents who have already paid their donations now want to know why it is compulsory. They are thinking: “I’m getting 20 hours’ free childcare but my donation has become a compulsory fee.” 
Well what is going on with this Government is that it cannot tell the truth any more. It is really about that simple. It just cannot tell the truth. I will give another example—in fact Mr Maharey knows all about this. These appropriations today really sum up the fact that the Labour Government is continuing to spend more and more taxpayers’ money for low quality. We heard today about the health situation in our emergency departments. There was a measuring system in the past—that statement was a lie. More and more money—40 percent more—has been spent on health the output is the same and the emergency departments still cannot offer timely service to patients. 
That is because Labour members do not really care. What they care about is that the health system is public and that they have spent more money on it because that is their whole political strategy. Dr Cullen went through it. He just went through the long list of all the things he is spending money on. He has treated the economy like a cash machine. He goes to that cash machine with the cash card belonging to all New Zealanders and he never bothers to put any money into the back of the machine. It is a cash machine that just keeps throwing up cash that he and Mr Maharey keep spending. 
In tertiary education Mr Maharey and Dr Cullen have overseen the expenditure of $400 million on thinking about tertiary education—thinking about it. None of that money has actually gone on educating young New Zealanders but $400 million has gone on thinking about it. I asked Dr Cullen the other day whether he could explain any of the $400 million and do members know what he said? He said: “I am here to talk about the future not the past.” He would not even stand up to defend Steve Maharey’s mess in tertiary education. It starts on 1 January after 8 years of thinking reform and endless document strategies workshops launches and ministerial cocktails. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: It’s called panache. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is called panache apparently if Steve Maharey does it and it is called a disgraceful waste of money by everybody else. That is tertiary education. 
But the really big issue now for Labour is tax. There is a really simple problem for Labour. Dr Cullen says no to tax cuts Trevor Mallard says yes to tax cuts and Helen Clark cannot decide. She cannot decide. She cannot decide whether to push Dr Cullen because he has resisted all personal tax cuts for as long as possible. In fact he cancelled the tax cuts he promised twice: the chewing gum tax cuts. For two Budgets he promised them; in the third Budget he cancelled them. Trevor Mallard left the country and was brave enough to tell an Australian audience that Labour will cut taxes in the next Budget. Well Dr Cullen said: “We think the same.” but he said he had announced last week that he would make some announcements in the next Budget about tax cuts. So he is trying to find just enough grip on the tax-cut idea to try to keep his job. 
John Carter 
: He won’t be here. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well Dr Cullen says that he will be here Trevor Mallard clearly thinks that he will be the Minister of Finance and Helen Clark who is stuck with the job of trying to renew the corpse of Labour cannot decided whether to boot out Dr Cullen. She should listen to his arguments which we have heard here time and time again. 
Dr Cullen says that if we have tax cuts then we will have to sack nurses and doctors. I want the next Minister who gets up to take a call to tell us which nurses and doctors Trevor Mallard will sack. Is it the case that when Labour does tax cuts then we do not have to sack anybody but if National does them then that means meltdown in the public service? How ridiculous! This is the logical corner that Dr Cullen has got himself into. In fact the day he made a billion dollars of tax cuts in the Budget for companies he said that we should not do them. He said that if anyone does tax cuts then we will have to sack teachers and doctors and that he had just given $1 billion worth of tax cuts. So this man says that there should not be any tax cuts and then he puts them in place. He says that we should not borrow money and then he goes and borrows it. How can we believe this man? 
I will tell members a bit about debt. Dr Cullen has been out there borrowing. He has borrowed $9.5 billion for Reserve Bank reserves. Out of $32 billion of gross sovereign issue debt he has borrowed $9.5 billion of it for the Reserve Bank and did not tell anybody until I asked him about it at the Finance and Expenditure Committee last week. Here is Dr Cullen going around the country saying that National’s policies are reckless and will cause debt to go up and behind our backs he has increased public debt by about 25 percent in order to finance Reserve Bank reserves. It has nothing to do with fiscal policy; it is simply an entry on the books that he has counted as a big increase in New Zealand’s debt. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is that their foreign market speculation? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is for those members’ foreign market speculation. That is exactly what it is for. It is not for infrastructure it is not for hospitals it is not for schools; it is just for foreign market speculation. That is what it is all about. 
What all this adds up to is high interest rates for New Zealanders and that is the real problem Steve Maharey should be worrying about. About 30 percent of 2-year mortgages roll over in the next 6 months and those people will be coming off interest rates of 7.5 percent on to 9.25 percent—an increase of about 30 percent in their interest outgoings. They will thank Steve Maharey for that because they know that one of the pressures on interest rates is the huge spending plans of this Government. The Government has been warned time and time again by the Reserve Bank by Treasury and by every economist in the market saying to Dr Cullen that if he keeps spending at the rate he is spending then it puts pressure on interest rates. So when those interest rates go to 9.5 percent it is partly because of Labour’s spending. 
Dr Cullen plans to spend $7.1 billion more over the next couple of years—$7.1 billion more—destroying the prospect of homeownership and carving into the budgets of New Zealanders living in the suburbs running their small businesses and running their farms because he thinks that everyone else should carry the burden of fighting inflation. He wants it both ways. He has just re-signed an agreement with the Governor of the Reserve Bank to fight inflation but then he says that exporters and families have to carry the cost because the Labour Government wants to just keep spending to get people’s votes—and waste their money.