Cosgrove Clayton: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19389] 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I think Dr Cullen made some very interesting points. We need to get a bit of reality about the National Party back into this debate. Here is the reality and here are the facts which I think set a wonderful framework and platform for an argument and a debate at the next election. For 6 years we have had the highest growth rate in the OECD. For 5 years we have been ahead of Australia. For those in the National Party who always see Australia as the panacea I point to those figures. We have the lowest rate of unemployment in 20 years—3.6 percent. Since December it has tightened to 3.1 percent in my own province in Canterbury. They are facts. They are credible facts; they are verified by overseas agencies. 
After the 2004 Budget when Bill English was the leader of the National Party I recall getting up and being astounded at the fact that for the first time the Labour Government was being attacked for being too tight. I recall that throughout our history the National Party and the conservatives have always taken pot shots at the Labour Party as being the tax-and-spend party; but here was a leader of the National Party—for the first time in my short living memory—who had got up broken the mould and accused the Minister of Finance and the Labour Government of being too tight. 
Of course when that did not work and it has been proved that we are being fiscally responsible we now have Dr Brash on the one hand saying that we are still too tight and on the other is the softer face of National’s economic and finance policies John Key saying that we are leaving people out in the cold because we are not spending as much as we should. Then there is the Green member and others who are also saying that. Dr Brash is complaining about high interest rates and is then promoting policies like spending millions of dollars on law and order—hundreds of millions of dollars probably; we wait for the dollar signs to come out—and massive tax cuts which would promote inflation. They would be inflationary and would provide again another pointer for Dr Bollard to raise interest rates on Kiwis. 
Of course as Dr Cullen has said we cannot really have it both ways. In the last couple of weeks we have seen the softening of the National Party on every particular point at issue that the people have rejected the National Party on in the last couple of elections. With regard to superannuation there was a very interesting pamphlet—a bit of National Party propaganda—that said National would keep the age of entitlement right and it would not alter or tinker with the mechanics. But it left out a little bit in terms of the rate: whether the rate would actually stay the same under a National Government. That is the little piece of information that is probably the most sought after by our elderly folk—the rate of superannuation. It was just left out in the ether somewhere and was fudged. There was no mention of it. 
National members have had a turn around on asset sales. They say they will not sell assets except maybe for one or two such as some of our best-performing State-owned enterprises like Landcorp Farming. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Three or four. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Or three or four Dr Cullen says. Then there would be massive spending on health; massive spending that will outdo us—they say—on law and order but not one dollar figure has been put beside the promises. 
I look forward to the next election because I will stand up on the stump and say: “This is what I said I would do. This is what the Labour Government said it would do. Don’t trust us by our words trust us by our actions.” I will lay that side by side against the only legacy that the National Party has on financial matters health matters social security matters and social welfare matters. The only legacy those members have was 6 years ago. 
Unlike some members opposite who pray that voters are stupid and have short memories I believe that voters will come home because they can remember the triple cut in superannuation. They can remember the selling out of State-owned enterprises. They can remember all the hospitals being underfunded. They will remember that and it will become an issue of credibility. 
I want to also address for a moment the issue of tax cuts and the argument that we are not doing enough. Well there is an argument—tax cuts versus Working for Families. That is a spending package I am proud of because of what Working for Families will do for a family of mum dad and four kids on $55000 which was not a bad income 10 years ago. That family is looking at an increase of $150 a week extra in the hand. Maybe we should not use the term but we could call it a targeted tax cut because it is taking money—the wealth of our economy—and redistributing it to the working families at the bottom of the heap who need it the most. To get anywhere near that amount the same family would require a 9.5 percent tax rate which National would not even deliver and that is where the credibility starts and finishes.