Cunliffe David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12688] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 So far in this debate the Committee has considered the impact of government by focus group. New Zealanders are sick of that. New Zealanders are sick of a situation where real lives are at risk and real families are under stress because this Government does not have a plan. This Government advances ideas—it calls it “kicking the tyres”. That means the Government puts a potentially unpopular decision out in public and when the polling tells it that a significant number of New Zealanders understand what is going on and do not like it it backtracks. In the short term that may be to tactical advantage because the Government may be able to save itself a few votes. But if it keeps doing that time after time we will get what we have got and that is a country with no sense of direction a business sector with confidence at some of the lowest levels on record and consumer spending that is subdued because New Zealanders have their wallets closed because they are afraid of the future. 
The Minister of Finance talks about rebalancing and he is partly right. In our earlier debate we noted the fact that the part of his analysis about the slow growth of the tradables sector and the scarcity of capital facing New Zealand’s firms is on the money. But that is where it stops because there is no strategy to deal with the very problems the Government has identified. If we are capital-scarce we should obtain capital. If we do not save enough we should encourage savings. We should not cut KiwiSaver. We should not forget to put money into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. We should not close the Government’s mind to the possibility that new additional different things might have a substantial impact on savings—for example beefing up Kiwibank rather than forcing it to go overseas to borrow yet more international debt so that Kiwis can recycle it into real estate. 
This Government pledged to correct the imbalances of the economy but it only tiptoed around building depreciation with the property sector and even then it got it wrong putting it on commercial property as well as residential property. A significant tax advantage to real estate remains and there is a huge avoidance problem. The Finance and Expenditure Committee in its report to this Committee has pointed out that some $2.5 billion is being avoided or evaded by means of loss attributing qualifying companies and the misuse of portfolio investment entities. But the Government did not have the bottle to follow its own rhetoric and address that problem at source. 
The Labour Party has been able to recite example after example—whether we call it kicking the tyres a rolling maul or just a bloody shambles—of things that are no alternative for a strategy. We have had the cycleway the Job Summit the mining step change and the attack on workers’ rights with the 90-day fire-at-will bill—all things that are no alternative and no excuse for a strategy. 
I turn now to the contrast with Australia. The Government said that it wanted to catch up with Australia. It appointed none less than former National leader and former Governor of the Reserve Bank Don Brash to attempt to draw together the best threads of National Party thinking. It was so good that Prime Minister John Key announced it dead on arrival before it was even published. He said it was too extreme. Government by focus group got in the way of the underlying agenda just in case Kiwis worked out what they meant and decided they did not like it. It was the same thing Ruth Richardson meant. It was the same thing Jenny Shipley meant. In fact it was the same thing that Margaret Thatcher meant and the same thing Ronald Reagan meant: deregulate and hope; take it off the back of working people make the rich richer and the poor poorer and hope it all trickles down. 
But it is not all their fault. Actually the left of politics broadly speaking needs to stand up and be counted for some old principles of our own—like the fact that equality is a good thing and like the fact that equality of opportunity for every New Zealand child matters. I was in my electorate of New Lynn on Friday and I went to the local high school in Kelston. I am ashamed to say that there are children going to school without shoes and without breakfast and some who live in caravans. 
How do members like this for the Government’s economic strategy? One family that I was told about was a family of six children mum and dad. Dad was supporting that family living in a State house with a reasonable labouring job but his entire company folded in the recession and he is out of work. The family could not afford a State house even with Labour’s income-capped rents. So they had to move in with his brother and now there are eight children and four adults living in one three-bedroom home in Kelston. 
Just down the road we are trying to help another family who live in a caravan and another family of four children who live in a garage. I am ashamed that this is the country we call home. If that is trickle-down economics I say that it has not trickled down to Kelston. It has not trickled down to my constituents. 
Let us contrast that with Australia. Australia is the country we were supposed to catch up to but there is no plan to do that. The Australian Government invested robustly through the recession. It created jobs. Under Labour we used to have lower unemployment than Australia but now it is higher. Gerry Brownlee thinks that New Zealand incomes are rising faster than Australia’s I say to Mr English. I am sure that Mr English at least knows better. It will be interesting tomorrow when he is asked to quantify that in the House in question time because the truth will out. New Zealand workers have gone backwards—backwards—because New Zealand’s Government has no plan. The Australian Labor Government does. It may not be perfect but it knew how to grow an economy through recession and not stand on the sidelines fiddle and hope give up on New Zealanders’ future and boil aspiration down to individual self-interest where the rich and the powerful climb on the backs of the poor the homeless and the needy just like they have always done. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It’s not funny. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No it is not funny I say to Mr David Carter who owns a dozen companies and squillions of acres of farmland. If Mr Carter lived in Kelston and his children had no shoes he would not be laughing. If his colleague who has just bought a swag of New Zealand farming systems was in the Chamber right now I would be asking him what is so funny about profiteering off a New Zealand company that has been sold for scrap because the Government’s economic strategy has failed. 
The Government’s economic strategy is in tatters and its public relations are in tatters. All it is doing is governing by focus groups and New Zealanders want better. They want vision they want values they want coherent good law and they want evidence-based policy. They want policy that will work and will raise living standards and they want more equality—they want more equality. It is very interesting I say to Mr Carter that I had a farmer in my office who said: “You know we like National but the Minister of Agriculture is a waste of space. We can’t wait for the reshuffle that gets Carter out of that job.” I said: “His brother is pretty smart so I do not know what happened to the DNA. But I know what you mean.” So I say to the Minister of Agriculture that I would not laugh if I were him because it will not be long before Federated Farmers have their way with him and then the smile will be out of the other side of his face. 
I turn back to the people of Kelston who are struggling in this so-called recovery. It has not hit them. It has not hit the high street businesses whose windows are boarded up and whose shops are vacant the taxi drivers who cannot get fares or the workers who have lost their overtime. We have not caught up with Australia. This issue is not just about the lack of a plan; it is about real-life pain. It is about the real-life hardship of children going to school hungry children with no shoes and no books and people having to wait for medical care. It will get worse and worse because it is not OK to create a society of haves and have-nots. It is not the Kiwi way. Kiwis are decent people. All right they do not like to be told what to do but they think everybody deserves a fair go and equality of opportunity. A plan for jobs and a plan for growth is what they expect of this Government. They are asking why they elected it and how long it will be before they can get a coherent alternative.