Cunliffe David: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Cunliffe David: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:627;Page:22243] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow the member who has just resumed her seat. Indeed the Green Party has made a contribution to the long-term thinking of this Government around energy issues. It has to its credit been making the case for renewable energy for some time now and that is to be applauded. Of course it supports the Government’s decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol which has made available some of the credits that have contributed to renewable energy in the form of wind power where New Zealand is now taking an international leadership position. It is ironic however that the member criticises the Government for spending too much on roads and too much perhaps on urban rail because often other members opposite criticise the Government for spending too little. The truth of the matter is that we are now spending on a per annum basis in Auckland alone 10 times what was being spent when we came into office 6 years ago. 
But I do not want to dwell on that track record—good as it is—because I want to cast my mind back to a time before I even entered Parliament. It is appropriate in this type of debate where we take stock of the Budget and where Parliament has got to in the last days of this session. Before I entered Parliament I was a diplomat and I worked latterly in the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC. It was my pleasure to support the visits of such high-ranking Ministers as Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and the Hon Philip Burdon who occasionally fell asleep in meetings with US Congressmen. There are other exciting stories that I will not go into now. It is a very great surprise to me to find that a former Minister like Lockwood Smith who was experienced in those circles would be the one to put on the table in front of a visiting group of US senators the idea that a group like The Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute ought to help educate Kiwis about our nuclear-free policy. For those who do not know the people involved with The Heritage Foundation let me tell members that those people think Attila the Hun is a liberal and Genghis Khan is PC. These guys are seriously right wing. They are the sort of people that Ken Shirley thinks are right on. That is how far to the right they are. Those are the people whom Lockwood Smith thinks ought to be educating everyday New Zealanders about our foreign policy. 
Well we have news for him. We are proud of New Zealanders and we trust them to have good sense. They have said that although they are prepared to invest our resources and risk the lives of New Zealand service people who are overseas making this a safer world they will not go blindly into that dark night and they will not go where any other country says just because it is that country. They will make up their own minds. That is a prerogative as a sovereign nation that our forebears fought and died to secure and we are not about to give it away on a whim. Nor will we ask any foreign power to fund our election campaign on the basis of a promise like Lockwood Smith sought. 
I believe that when asked this evening whether Dr Smith really said that Dr Brash echoed a famous phrase. I ask members to guess what it was. I believe he said he would “neither confirm nor deny”. Well the worm comes full circle because this is Dr Brash’s latest utterance. One could even call it position No. 10. He has more positions on nuclear ships than the Kama Sutra. He has 10 positions so far advancing on that advance by Simon Power who said that wherever George goes they go. Going back— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I caution the member not to refer to what it is alleged that Dr Smith said. He has made a personal explanation in the House and we need to accept that. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I was not aware of that. I was in my office at the time the personal explanation was made. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It has been done so there will be no more references to that. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I take your point Mr Assistant Speaker. I think it is a matter of public record that Dr Brash has had 10 positions now if we include the “neither confirm nor deny” policy on nuclear ships. He has told people that the nuclear-free policy would be gone by lunchtime that he wants a referendum that he will change it if he has got a mandate and that he has not got a policy yet. What does Dr Brash think? 
The question facing New Zealanders is simply this: who do they trust? Do they trust Helen Clark in a Government that has stood up for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy stance over these last 6 years or do they trust a man who is new to politics who cannot make up his mind who will not say what his real agenda is and who is apparently even let down by former Ministers making embarrassing statements about foreign funding? 
That is one issue but of course there is an even bigger flip-flop on an issue that is very close to many New Zealanders’ hearts. That is about whether they can trust Dr Brash with the nations’s chequebook. Once again we get the same treatment. My colleague Annette King called it the great striptease. I just call it the policy vacuum. I have not seen a policy from the National Party. What I have heard is $7 billion worth of spending and tax cut promises so far. National has talked about a 3c cut across the board in the tax rate. That is about $4 billion worth roughly speaking by a back of the envelope calculation. To give a real life example if you are a family with a $50000 income that is worth—wait for it—$28 a week. I do not refer to you Mr Speaker. I am sure you are on more than $50000 and you deserve to be and it would be worth more than $28 for you. But for a family on $50000 it would be $28 a week. 
 Now if National’s $4 billion of tax cuts let alone its $3 billion of spending promises were to hit Dr Bollard’s desk at the Reserve Bank and he were to put rates up by say a percent that would be $38 a week off that same income with a mortgage of $200000. So someone with an average mortgage would be worse off—and that is even before National has done away with the Working for Families package. So again I ask who New Zealanders trust. They trust Dr Cullen. 
Hon David Carter 
: Ha ha! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No no. They trust him not just to be a good manager of the chequebook or to restore New Zealand’s international reputation for good Government and fiscal stability but to front up and say what he will do. No one can argue with this: we did not embellish that Budget. We told it as it was. There is no $7.4 billion surplus because every Kiwi knows that when you get your wages and pay the bills at the end of the week— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
:—not you Mr Speaker; I am sure that you get your wages and pay your bills. As the average Kiwi knows if one has a surplus it comes down to what is left in the purse. This Government as made clear in the Budget statements will be running a cash deficit for 3 out of the next 4 years which will increase to around $3 billion in 2008. Well that is a funny kind of surplus and it is not what New Zealanders understand by the phrase. 
This Government is committed to making life better for all New Zealanders not just to giving a tax cut for the wealthy. We know that even an across-the-board tax cut falls disproportionately to the top table and that those at the bottom end miss out. At the end of the day that is often what politics is about is it not? It is not about grand speeches in the House it is not about policy papers that are 5 yards long and it is not about the fine rhetoric; it is about who gets what. It is about whether the next John Key who grows up in a State house will get a good State education so he will be able to make the best of his life or whether we will give away the resources of the generation next to this one so that we can continue a spending boom beyond our means. Will we be responsible will we look after our children and will we look after our futures by spending only what we can afford to spend as we can afford to spend it? I see Mr Shirley nodding because he has dedicated most of his career—which ends this week—to good fiscal management and I commend him for that. He knows that the argument has been won on this side. He knows— 
Simon Power 
: Gotta love him! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —and Simon Power knows as he slumps down in his seat that they are there on the Opposition benches for another 3 years. It is not all bad for Simon Power. He is quite well positioned for the next round and I think he will be a formidable opponent in 2008. But those members need that 3 years clearly to come up with a policy because they do not have a policy on nuclear ships they do not have a policy on tax cuts and they do not have a policy on superannuation entitlements. Hell they do not have a policy! 
New Zealanders know who they can trust—a hard-working good Government led by Helen Clark and her front-bench team her Cabinet. They know that we might not put a lot of fluff around the package but we tell it as it is. New Zealanders can trust us to do our very best for every New Zealand family because that is what we have done for the last 6 years and what we will continue to do for the next 6 years.