Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:4002] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I have to say that the Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill is based on one premise: a lie. It is an absolute lie. In fact we could rename this bill the “Taxation (Lie) Bill”. It is based on a deception—and it does not matter how high Mrs Parata raises her voice. 
She said this Government is not expedient. [ 
Interruption 
] I know that the Cheshire cat sitting in the Government’s front row might want to grin about her Budget bid. Members opposite say this Government is not expedient. An International Monetary Fund report that came out on 8 October said that the world economy was entering a major downturn in the face of “the most dangerous shock” to rich-country financial markets since the 1930s. It came out at the same time as John Key came out with what Brian Rudman called a “catalogue of tax-cut bribes”; on 8 October John Key said he was unveiling a tax package that was “responsible” and “appropriate for the current conditions”. That was how he characterised his tax package although he knew about that International Monetary Fund report. We had only to turn on the radio or the TV to work out that the world was imploding in a financial crisis. 
And Mrs Parata says National is not expedient. She says that it shows courage and leadership. Well what shows courage and leadership? To say one thing before an election knowing that that member and her Government cannot deliver on it? She characterises that as some sort of standard of courage some sort of standard of leadership. We now have a new definition of leadership and courage in this Parliament and that definition is to deceive. That is what National members did and that is why they are hoist with their own petard. 
I say to Mr Dunne whom I differentiate slightly from National members as being a more honourable person that I suspect that in the deepest dark of the night he squirms a little at the thought of having to front this bill. Mrs Parata puffs her chest out raises her voice and tries to convince the New Zealand people that she did not deceive them when as she and her ilk climbed and clawed their way up the political greasy pole of the National Party list to get to where they are. They said anything that they could; they were the archetypal definition of expedience before an election. I invite her to go out on the stump to go to the constituency she purports to represent and try to convince people. 
National was ambitious for New Zealand. National said if people voted for it it would deliver tax cuts. National members criticised Michael Cullen because Michael Cullen was cautious. They said it was an outrage that he was cautious it was an outrage that he squirreled away the surpluses. I say to Mrs Parata that she has raised to a new height the standard of gall in this House. She stood up and tried to persuade us that National had shown leadership by deceiving—knowingly not by accident—every member of the New Zealand public. Does that member really think it is credible for her to tell the New Zealand people that miraculously when she and her ilk entered the Cabinet room somebody passed a note to the Prime Minister that said by the way there is a global recession—in fact the worst we have seen in the history of the globe—and by the way his tax cuts probably will not work? Does anybody think the New Zealand people are so stupid that they would accept that thesis from that member? Even that member Crosby/Textor Mr Joyce and the myriad spin doctors that National has over there cannot now deceive the New Zealand people because they know that they were deceived knowingly and with intent. 
It should not surprise us because it is a typical Tory trick. National has done it for decades. It goes to the people and says that shock horror it has opened the books everything is terrible and it has to break its promises. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No ifs no buts no maybes. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Exactly. What all of them have done—and old “Sooty” in the front row in the pink shirt ought to remember because he—