Key John: Budget Debate 
Key John: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:20812] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 There was a deep dark secret in the Budget. It was buried in there pretty deep and this was it. Budget 2005 was a loser an absolute loser for this Government. It will go down in history as the longest resignation note from a Minister of Finance. If it were a movie it would be catalogued in the horror section. It does not get any better than that. 
I noticed something very interesting on Budget day. When I looked across to the Labour front-bench members I saw them nodding off to sleep. That reminded me of something I saw when I was leaving the lock-up to come into the Chamber. The junior Government whip Darren Hughes was giving out No Doze tablets so that back-benchers would not fall asleep. Unfortunately the front-bench members snuck in from the side and did not get their top-up. They had to rely on the coffee they had at lunchtime. 
Budget 2005 was a shocker. Even Michael Cullen looked bored when reading the thing out. That is how bad it was. If he was bored when reading the Budget—and we will assume he was bored when putting it together because there was not a helluva lot in it of interest—he sure as earth was not bored when he read the reaction in the newspapers in the past 12 days post-Budget. It is fair to say that Dr Cullen is under a fair bit of pressure at the moment. He was under a lot of pressure around that Budget. We all know the story: the Prime Minister picked up the poll results—she does her polling every couple of days—and went down to the seventh floor pulled up a chair and said: “Michael we’ve got a problem. The Nats are absolutely taking us to the cleaners over taxation. You’ve got to do something Michael. Help me! I want a third term. It will mean so much to me. Please Michael show me the money.” 
So Michael Cullen thought: “No no. I like spending. Boy can I spend! I’ve spent $50 billion worth of additional taxes in the last 5 years.” Helen Clark looked at him with that steely-eyed gaze and said: “Michael make it happen. I’m off to the Amway salesman—the President of the Labour Party Mike Williams—to tell him the good news that you have found some cash.” And so it was. Mike Williams went out there in his dark glasses and coat and rang the journalists saying in a quiet voice: “It’s Mike Williams here from the Labour Party. There’s a deep dark Tory secret buried deep in the Budget. Ha ha ha! Wait till it all comes out.” 
We had seen Dr Cullen in the House not answering any questions about tax cuts not saying anything. We watched him day after day as we asked him whether there would be tax cuts in the Budget. He said: “I can’t answer that. The member will have to wait until Thursday.” Well what came on Thursday was an absolute shocker. I could not believe it. I must admit I plead guilty. The press gallery wrote that I looked a bit too happy after I had read the Budget. I plead guilty. I could not believe it when I picked up the  
Dominion Post  
on Friday morning and saw the headline: “Is that it?”. Six years of good economic weather under Labour and is that it—67c? It would not have paid for the  
Dominion Post  
that morning and people have to wait for 3 years—until 2008. It was a shocker. 
John Armstrong is one of the finest political journalists in the country. He is a man who calls it the way he sees it. When one gets it right he says so. When one gets it wrong he says so. When I picked up my  
New Zealand Herald  
in Auckland on the Saturday morning after the Budget I was greeted with the words: “To the catalogue of great disasters—the Titanic the Hindenburg Michael Jackson’s marriage to Lisa-Marie Presley—can be added the words ‘Michael Cullen’s sixth Budget’.” John Armstrong went on to say that Michael Cullen “has done the seemingly impossible: turning wine into water.” He said also that his Budget is an election-year flop. No wonder— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Who said that? 
JOHN KEY 
: John Armstrong. No wonder the rumour mill is absolutely rife that Mike Munro is on the way out. He has had a complete stoush with the Prime Minister with Michael Cullen and with Mike Williams. They are all fighting amongst each other because they know a shocker when they see one. They are sitting around with their hands over their heads saying: “How on earth did we get it so terribly wrong?”. Then they realised that the  
New Zealand Herald  
put those words into the mouth of Mike Williams. The Prime Minister was in a really snarly mood at her press conference on the Monday. She also made a personal attack on me and I took umbrage but anyway let us not worry about that. I am bigger than that and I will move on. But she said to Ruth Berry of the  
New Zealand Herald 
: “You put those words into Mike Williams’ mouth.” I will not repeat what Ruth said but she pointed out that she had not done that and asked that the Prime Minister play the tape. The tape would say there is a deep dark secret in the Budget and we are going to smash the Tories with our 67c tax cut! It was an absolute shocker. 
The great tragedy though about the whole opportunity in Budget 2005 was that it was not that dissimilar to Budget 2004. It was a sensational opportunity to be a game-changer for New Zealand. We had a $7.4 billion operating surplus an unbelievable position to fix two of the major problems in New Zealand—that is a low-wage economy and a brain drain. We should be worried. Michael Cullen should have come into the House on that Thursday afternoon and said to the people of New Zealand: “I’m not happy that 600 of you are leaving this week to go to Australia.” 
I see the Minister of Immigration walking into the Chamber. He will be the “Minister of Emigration” soon because more people are leaving than are arriving. That is the truth of it. More people want out. He will be the only “Minister of Emigration” in the world. People will have to go to the “Minister of Emigration” to get their air ticket to get on the plane. He will be leading the charge. He is not a bad Minister of Immigration so maybe he can become the “Minister of Emigration” because that is the way it is going to work. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: He will be the tour leader! 
JOHN KEY 
: The tour leader! That is right; a sort of “Damien Dazzler” to South Australia. Last week 600 people left New Zealand for Australia. The day after the Budget more of them lined up at the Travelex office to get their ticket out of here. Not one thing changed after the Budget. Michael Cullen had $7.5 billion available to fix that situation and he did not care. What he cares about more than anything else is having a whole lot of money to give away and try to buy some votes in election 2005. But the people of New Zealand have said: “We know when enough is enough.” They are thinking: “We gave him a chance in 2003 we gave him a bigger chance in 2004 but by crikey in 2005 show us something.” 
 It was an election year lolly-scramble with the Minister of Finance throwing the lollies so far away that the kids are still looking for them. He threw them as far away as 2008—so far that people cannot see them. In an ownership society what on earth will people buy for $5000 in 2012? One will not be able to get a pup tent. I am sorry but people have to hear it. They will not be able to get a pup tent to put up somewhere. It was an absolute shocker. 
Then there were the changes—and I will quote from John Shewan of PricewaterhouseCoopers who said: “If ever there was a time when tax cuts could have been offered it was now.” Can members imagine the look on the faces of United Future members? They now believe everything John Tamihere told them because there it was a one-word change—2005 to 2008. I guess it is a number really. But from that 2005 opportunity they went their way. United Future must have done an unbelievable job of negotiating with the Government because on Saturday it rolled out its tax plan and it was $3 billion. The Government gave it $360 million in 3 years’ time and it came out with its tax plan of $3 billion. It was an absolute shocker. 
This morning when I picked up the  
New Zealand Herald  
I did not expect to see good news—because there is never good news for this Government; it is just one bad day after another—and sure enough there it was the business confidence survey showed we have slumped to a 17-year low. The member opposite Jill Pettis may shake her head but there it was—a 17-year low. We have not seen it as bad as this since the 1987 stock market crash and there had been an amazing opportunity. 
If anyone is under any illusion whatsoever about this Government’s agenda when it comes to taxes it surely is not to reduce them because low and behold buried in the Budget was the carbon tax. To add insult to injury those poor people who are getting 67c a week will have to pay their carbon tax a year earlier. National when it assumes the Treasury benches in a few months’ time will do so much better.