Cosgrove Clayton: Imprest Supply Debate — Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Imprest Supply Debate — Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:500] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I rise to support the Imprest Supply (Third for 2005/06) Bill. I start off by pointing out a couple of home truths to Dr Smith. Dr Smith quoted I believe from the Treasury briefing to incoming Ministers when he advocated that future Budgets must involve less spending. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: It’s what Treasury said. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Indeed I accept the member’s word on that; I am aware of what Treasury said. But I also ask the member whether he is suffering from déjà vu and advise him to get some treatment for it. If we look at the National Party’s spending package that it went to the country on not a couple of months ago and would have implemented— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Spending isn’t tax. The member’s confused. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The member has gone troppo; he should just calm down and relax. The National Party’s proposed campaign platform—we will deal with spending in a moment—in essence promised a $4 billion tax cut of which most New Zealanders would get zip and most members in this House would get about 100 bucks per week. If we add to that $5 billion worth of spending promises which I will get to in a moment and $3.7 billion worth of borrowing does that suggest that National members have any credibility to be able to get up in this House and talk about fiscal prudence? This was the Opposition that in the dying days of the last election campaign wanted to drop petrol by 5c—not for any ethical philosophical ideological proper right or professional motive but because it wanted to. It would have done that for what 6 months just to try to scrape over the line with a few extra percentage points of the vote. Well people found National out. People know that National has no credibility when it comes to spending. 
After having heard that pious vein-popping speech from Dr Smith who talked about pious fiscal prudence let us look at what National would have done had it become the Government. National’s transport policy involved an extra two hundred million bucks per year. A National Government would have spent an extra $1.864 billion on defence $300 million on law and order $124 million on hard labour $20 million on compulsory DNA testing and $319 million on the environment. It made spending promises totalling $5.27 billion combined with the promise of a $4 billion tax cut for its mates. We on this side of the Chamber however are not single-issue obsessives. We choose to back working families not many of whom would vote for that mob over there. I talked in the Address in Reply debate and was stopped—this is telling—by the Mother Teresa of the New Zealand Parliament Judith Collins who yawned when I talked about reductions in child poverty. That lot over there do not give a rats about reducing child poverty. Those members do not give a damn about helping those who are in need. National proposed—and it has the audacity to talk about fiscal prudence—$5.27 billion of spending. Maybe Dr Smith was doing an audition to become finance spokesperson again I do not know. But he had the audacity to lecture this House about prudent fiscal management after having promised a $4 billion tax cut and $5 billion of expenditure based on $3.5 billion of borrowing. 
Then there is Dr Brash the carcass with a coat and tie on. If any member in this Chamber has a smell of death about him to use Dr Smith’s words it is that gentleman—although judging by John Key’s speech Bill English looks good after today’s effort. If anybody has the smell of rigor mortis around him in a political sense it is Dr Brash after that awesome Address in Reply speech. That crew over there should pull out its own manifesto and reflect on it and on its own campaign promises and consider how fiscally prudent it would have been had it got into Government. There are two propositions to be advanced from that. The first is that it would have spent the lot as it proposed to do and financed its tax cuts through borrowing as it proposed to do—and as some of its members did throughout the campaign when they went around the country contradicting John Key who admitted time and time again that National would borrow for tax cuts. In order to replace the revenue it would lose it would then either cut expenditure or sell assets. Well it did a lot of the latter last time. 
So the question is: would National have honoured its election promises? Maybe it would not have. Maybe Dr Smith is being honest and telling us today that National went to the country telling porkies and that had it got to the Treasury benches it would have backed down on every bribe and every commitment it had made. Well I thank Dr Smith. He is an honourable person he has told the truth and now the people know: they cannot trust that crew—the National Party—either way. What would National have been forced to cut? It would not talk about that during the election. In fact the biggest thing I remember about the general election campaign is that when we fronted up to meetings and asked National candidates what they would do in education they stood up and said for instance: “I believe in high-quality education.” Nobody disagrees with that. But the problem was that they would not finish the sentence. They would sit down because there was nothing—not a shell of a policy or a framework of a policy. It was hollowed out and there was nothing to it. 
I too remember past elections. I remember the 1990 election when Labour did lose. The truth is it went down the gurgler. But I also remember the National Party tactic in that election of promising anything—anything went. If we put out a policy involving say $100 million National would run it off the Xerox promising $200 million. It would not give any detail on its policy because it takes the community for granted and believes it is stupid. It is not stupid. The community is smarter than that and in the last election it saw through National. Either National is prepared to stand up in the House and honour its promises and say that it would have spent $5.27 billion that it would have been fiscally imprudent that it would have given $4 or $5 billion in tax cuts that it would have borrowed $3.5 billion to do it and that it would have cut expenditure or it has to stand up today and say: “We hoodwinked you. We told you what you might have wanted to hear but had we got on to the Treasury benches we would have sold you out like we did the last time we were in Government.” 
National cannot have it both ways; it cannot stand up in this House and pontificate about fiscal prudence and suddenly have amnesia and forget its own manifesto its own spending promises its own hoodwinking over petrol tax and in other areas—it cannot forget that. Suddenly there is a bit of silence on the other side of the House. Is that not telling? Suddenly the truth has rubbed in. I invite National members to go back and make the same explanation that Dr Smith attempted to make and to go back to the stump and to the communities and tell them what they would have done. They either would have sold the people out or would have kept their promises and spent the lot. They cannot have it both ways. 
This Government is about backing working families. This Government is about backing our teachers. I remember in the election campaign when National members got up and said they wanted to get rid of all those public servants. They stopped saying that after we calculated that the public servants who had been employed—the vast majority of them; not the policy wonks—were police teachers and nurses. They were front-line people who look after those in most need. I ask them again about that because they would not front up on that. I remember that wonderful statement by Dr Brash: “Not one teacher will lose his or her job. Not one nurse will lose her job.” Rubbish! It does not add up. If National cannot add up and if it does not know the difference in terms of depleting revenue and how one has to make revenue up either through spending cuts or selling assets then it has no credibility in this House. 
I support this Imprest Supply Bill. We will build on what we have done in the last 6 years. We have the lowest unemployment in the OECD which is 3.4 percent. We have seen 100000 people come off welfare and go into jobs. We have created 300000 jobs. National hates it when we say that because then we compare that with National’s legacy. We created 300000 more jobs than that crew and we have been in Government for just on 6 years. National had 9 years. It needs to stump up get real and demonstrate some credibility instead of continuing with the spin and the smoke and mirrors it is using today.