18 August 2005

The “Working For Labour” Package

Labour is treating taxpayer money as its own personal slush fund in trying to buy this election and the public has every right to ask how long Labour knew it was sitting on a record $7 billion dollar surplus, with the intention of spending it all, says Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“It seems National is trying to buy this election with large corporate money and Labour is trying to win it by overtaxing New Zealanders and then appearing magnanimous in giving it back. This is the kind of sordid politics that Americans might tolerate – but not New Zealand.

“Michael Cullen’s stunt today of telling the public he had ‘spent the lot’ before he opened the books shows the shameless depths Labour is willing to go to in order to try and win this election. It is a contempt for parliamentary democracy of the worst kind,” said Mr Peters.

“Labour have clearly thrown fiscal caution to the wind. The Public Finance Act 1989 was supposed to transform the framework for financial management and its reporting to Parliament.

“Cullen has overturned this and has set a new low standard. He has shown contempt for parliamentary scrutiny and contempt for the media in hitherto hiding monies that should have been known to both Parliament and the public.

“While New Zealand First agrees New Zealand families need relief – and New Zealand First will be releasing the first part of its economic plan on Monday to achieve this – creating greater dependency through benefits is not the way forward.

“Labour might also like to explain why seniors are continuously ignored when Labour keep dishing out their largesse. They said our Golden Age Card was unaffordable – well they made a lie of that statement today.

“Labour’s tactics of bribing people with their own money cannot last. There needs to be a return to integrity in reporting public money,” said Mr Peters.

ENDS

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