Cullen Michael: Adjournment 
Cullen Michael: Adjournment 
[Volume:627;Page:22364] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That the House do now adjourn until Friday 12 August 2005 
. That is the traditional motion that is moved. The House of course will be dissolved on Thursday 11 August. 
I begin by thanking all the staff in this building beginning with the Clerk and the rest of the Clerk’s Office staff including the  
Hansard 
 writers; the security officers; and the messengers. I also thank you Madam Speaker and the other presiding officers of Parliament. Madam Speaker your style of chairing is quite different from that of your predecessor—but in my view a no less competent form of chairing. 
I thank also those parties that have been assisting this Government through a 3-year stable period—in particular United Future which has stuck absolutely to its word in terms of the confidence and supply agreement. That of course is why it continues tonight to be savagely attacked by the National Party which just might want to talk to United Future after the election if National believes its own rhetoric about what will happen at the election. But of course that is the National Party: always treating everybody else like dogs and scum but grovelling around people should it actually need them at some point within the future. 
I want to thank also the Green Party which has supported this Government on a whole range of progressive legislation. Indeed I note that it has voted against us less often than United Future has which has differentiated itself from the Government on a whole range of issues. I thank New Zealand First particularly for its support in relation to the foreshore and seabed legislation. 
It will be sad for some perhaps to see the back of ACT after this election but it is summed up by the fact that tonight the ACT party voted “3” on the only division we had. As ACT is entitled to two proxies if we subtract those from three that leaves Deborah Coddington who of course is the only person apart from Richard Prebble from the ACT party actually to give a valedictory speech. That shows ACT’s commitment to this Parliament. 
This election that is forthcoming and that we on this side of the House look forward to enormously is one about leadership credibility policies and the record. And our record is very good! We have achieved over 20 percent growth during our time in Government. We have averaged 3.9 percent growth versus 3.1 percent under the National Party Government. We have created 260000-plus new jobs and achieved one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world. At the end of National’s period in office all it could claim was that it had got unemployment back to what it had started with when it had become the Government in 1990. We have started reversing the unconscionable growth in poverty that occurred during the 1990s whereby when National left office one in three of all our children was living in poverty. What does Dr Brash say about that? “Well sometimes poverty goes up and you have to live with that.”—if one wants the kind of policy that he believes in. 
We have increased by tens of thousands the number of surgical procedures being carried out in this country. We have put in place the new primary health care— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Sex-change operations. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well some of those members obviously need it but simply have not turned up to get the treatment. I encourage them to do so. It is much cheaper now for most of those people opposite to get proper health-care. 
Of course the one thing that they agree with us on—they have to agree if they are to pay for their promises—is that we have governed fiscally in a highly responsible fashion. We have one of the best records in the developed world. We have reduced debt. Government spending is lower as a percentage of GDP than when we became the Government. I see that Dr Brash is giving me a signal; I say: “Peace to you too Dr Brash”. He should remember that signal at the present time—namely peace. We have lowered Government spending as a proportion of GDP. Taxation is just about the same as it was when we became the Government. What National cannot get used to is the fact that if an economy has grown by more than 20 percent in real terms then of course Government spending can go up by about 33 percent while actually going down as a proportion of GDP. National members cannot do the arithmetic properly; I would not expect them to be able to do so. 
I look across at the Opposition benches. This Parliament has ended exactly as one might expect—with the National Party in total disarray. Lockwood Smith was caught with his pants down. He spends his life trying to be caught with his shirt off but this time he was caught with his pants down. Dr Smith’s problem is actually the problem of the current National Party under Dr Brash’s leadership—that is he cannot tell us what his secret desires are. It is the love that dare not speak its name—the love for the atomic bomb and for nuclear power. We have known that for 20 years the thought of nuclear power coming to this country has brought a glow to Dr Lockwood Smith’s cheeks—I will not say which cheeks but to Dr Lockwood Smith’s cheeks. He wants to change the policy but cannot bring himself to say so. Just say it Dr Smith! He wants to abandon the antinuclear policy so that he can cuddle up to the Americans. 
Dr Brash wants to do it too. He wants to tell us that he wants to completely deregulate the labour market but he will not say it. He wants to tell us that he wants to cut superannuation but he will not say so. He has so many things he would love to tell us but he dare not say them because if he did National’s position in the polls would plummet almost immediately into the nether regions. Dr Brash came into this Parliament to rescue the National Party from its own dangerous centrist friends as evidenced by Bill English. Now he desperately tries to pretend he is not a far-right ideologist. My goodness me! The evidence is all there in speech after speech he gave as Governor of the Reserve Bank. [ 
Interruption 
] The great thing about going to Christ’s College is that one learns about the rich and learns to realise that not all of them are rich because of their own virtue. Most of them are rich because they had the good fortune to choose rich parents. That is the main reason that people are rich in this country. 
So National has a leadership that when it comes to credibility had to say yesterday: “I can neither confirm nor deny.”—Dr Brash not knowing how wonderfully appropriate that particular comment was. Asked whether he could remember Dr Lockwood Smith saying: “Please sir could we have some money for a think tank to persuade our people that nuclear weapons are a good idea?” Dr Brash said: “I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Goodness me! Dr Brash said that Trevor Mallard was telling porkies when he claimed that National’s policy was written in Washington. Well that “neither confirm nor deny” phrase was written in Washington a long time ago. Of course National’s big policy— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Get out of the gutter. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: America is not the gutter. That is a terrible thing to say about one of our longest-standing friends and at times allies in terms of our history. 
So what is National’s big policy at this election? It is to bribe the people with big tax cuts but will National show us those tax cuts? No it will not. Those members are a bit like this Dr Smith—not very big. Dr Brash has already promised over $1 billion of tax cuts before National starts counting the real ones. Company tax gets a nod carbon charge gets a nod and tax rebates get a nod-nod. “Noddy” sitting over there is agreeing with me. National has already promised tax cuts of over $1 billion a year and we have $1 billion to come according to Mr Key. That is $2 billion—it is quite easy; $1 billion plus $1 billion is $2 billion—in promised tax cuts. 
Somehow all of this can be done without cutting spending on health or education or superannuation. What are the weasel words from Dr Brash? “We’ll keep spending where it is this year and it will go up each year.” Well I say to Dr Brash that health spending has to go up about $650 million a year just to keep current services and keep up with changes in technology; Mr English knows that—$50 million will not do $100 million will not do and $200 million will not do. Education spending has to go up about $350 million a year to keep pace with demand to pay increased salaries and to do all the other things that we are supposed to do in an education system. That is $1 billion a year gone before one starts out of that $1.9 billion allocation. 
The worm has turned I think one can say. With the student loan announcement and the farce over nuclear ships the National Party is staring defeat in the face. I will make a confident prediction that the day after the election Dr Brash will be gone by lunchtime!