Labour wit's farewell speech

'Sometimes a quick wit and a quick tongue can move too fast.'

BY PATRICK CREWDSON

LATEST: Former deputy prime minister and long-time finance minister Michael Cullen has apologised to political foes and colleagues bruised by his sharp wit.

Known for his quick wit and quotable quips, Dr Cullen acknowledged early in his valedictory speech this evening that most of his parliamentary colleagues would have "limited patience for an elderly gentleman engaging in extended verbal 'borborygmus'" - rumbling in the intestines caused by moving gas.

 

He told the House that he came from a poor background - his grandparents were "very poor, bordering on the semi-criminal" - and developed a strong hatred of poverty.

"Not of wealth, to which, within reason, we can all aspire, but of poverty with its grinding degradation and fundamental unfairness."

Dr Cullen joined the Labour Party in Dunedin in 1974 and became the candidate for St Kilda in 1980. He was elected to Parliament in 1981 after a career lecturing in history. He was Labour's finance spokesman for 17 years, its deputy leader for 12 years and finance minister and deputy prime minister for six years.

He said one of his "lasting contributions" to Parliament was helping to reform its procedures over 24 years, including inserting meal and sleep breaks into urgency proceedings, breaking up sitting weeks with regular recesses and livening up Question Time, which he said was now "much more immediate, timely, and flexible".

"Despite criticisms from some, it is, in my view, by far the most effective test of the mettle of ministers, and their opponents, of any Westminster-style parliament," he said.

"Imagine, for example, how well George W. Bush would have survived Question Time on a daily basis if he had been our Prime Minister. It would have taken many Grecians bearing many sorts of gifts to have got him through the experience."

He said the "theatre" of Parliament was important. It was "a stage on which ideas and personalities contest for dominance".

He took a swipe at TV3 political editor Duncan Garner for his "depressing" comments in 2007 that the default position of politicians is to lie.

"One might easily respond that the default position of journalists is to misrepresent and to manipulate. Neither statement is a fair reflection of the truth."

After discussing the pain caused by the fourth Labour Government's radical reforms in the 1980s - and the widening wealth gap between New Zealand and Australia in the years 1986 to 1993 - Dr Cullen said he was proud to have played a role in turning Labour into a "socially progressive, economically literate, fiscally conservative party".

"The fifth Labour Government succeeded in hauling the pendulum of economic debate back towards the centre," he said.

To muted laughter, Dr Cullen insisted he "did not personally organise the world recession to avoid being categorised" as a failed finance minister.

But he was concerned the National-led government had not grasped the significance of saving and borrowing to the global financial crisis.

He cited tax reform, the creation of the Cullen Fund, and Working for Families as among Labour's major achievements.

"I am immensely proud that we were the first government for decades to reduce inequality in New Zealand. Consciously or unconsciously, all governments engage in social engineering - the real issue is whether the structures thus created are ethically sound."

He also defended Labour against critics who label it the architect of a "nanny state".

"New Zealand is, in fact, far less of a nanny state than it was in 1981 in terms of both social and economic freedoms.

"It takes a peculiarly warped sense of values to equate using an obsolete, inefficient light bulb to the right to be who you are," he said to applause.

The foreshore and seabed debate, the "obscenity" of the Clyde high dam, and the leaky homes saga were career lows, Dr Cullen said, along with "the failure to get the majority of the Press Gallery to understand fiscal policy".

As deputy prime minister, he often had to step in as acting Prime Minister, and he cited his best gaffe as referring on radio to Fijian military leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama as "Barmy Mariner".

"I'm still not sure I was wrong, of course."

Describing politics as "a rough and bruising business", Dr Cullen apologised to Labour colleagues and Opposition foes he had treated overly harshly.

"Sometimes a quick wit and a quick tongue can move too fast."

He thanked former Prime Minister Helen Clark and his wife Anne for their support, and thanked the Government for appointing him to the board of NZ Post: "When I attacked National last year for swallowing so many dead rats little did I think that some might see me as one of them."

He told his Labour colleagues to "look forward to the day the political wheel will turn again, and make sure you give it a damn good shove in the meantime".

And he closed with a farewell message with a barb in the tail for the Greens.

"Good luck. But loosen up a bit. Saving the planet needs to sound less like punishment for our sins if it is going to succeed."

VINTAGE CULLEN:

* On Gerry Brownlee - "Mr Brownlee remains a booming voicebox looking for a brainbox."

* On Simon Power - " [He] will always be the future leader of the National Party, at least until he retires."

* On Lockwood Smith - "Any more manly overacting [he] will burst his Speedos."

* On Murray McCully - "[He] usually looks as though he's been left outside all night in the rain."

* On Winston Peters - "Winston Peters is the blowfly of New Zealand politics."

- © Fairfax NZ News