‘a hilarious, caring, clever, compassionate smart-arse’
As we all know by now SuperHelen, GLNZ, is off with the UNDP in New York . This week her Deputy Michael Cullen left Parliament.
Consequently the papers have featured a number of articles on Cullen’s contribution. In many ways Cullen has seemed to Adam more human than SuperHelen. Whilst not agreeing with much of what Cullen did Adam has a sneaking admiration for him, especially his wit.
The full text of Cullen’s valedictory can be found here. Vernon Small’s take on Cullen can be accessed. Small has been close to Cullen for a long time. It is favourable to Cullen, not truly a source greaser given Small’s relationship with Cullen.
Jason Knauf,who had worked for Cullen, wrote a totally OTT piece for the Herald, example:-
For what it’s worth (and with as much personal bias aside as possible), I believe it is a hard ask to point to another Western social democrat of his generation who has left a larger imprint on their domestic policy landscape.
Fortunately Paul Moon later in the week in another Herald article restored some balance, demolishing Knauf’s hagiography:-
Knauf’s opinion piece was packed with effusive references to his past master’s supposedly remarkable policy mind, a man whom he portrays as a “true giant” capable of “virtuoso performances in policy meetings” and someone who was no less than the greatest social democrat politician of his generation anywhere in the world.
In this inventory of adulation, Knauf speaks more of his capacity to be easily dazzled than of Cullen’s contribution to the nation.
Then pointing out:-
It is true that Helen Clark’s finance minister presided over one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth in the country’s recent history but he deserves credit for this to the same extent that medieval feudal lords deserved credit for good harvests.
It was largely a set of circumstances well beyond Cullen’s control that was responsible for New Zealand’s decade of prosperity.
However, what the finance minister did achieve was to increase the number of New Zealanders who became beneficiaries – possibly at the highest rate at any time since World War II. And instead of allowing the economy to flourish to its fullest extent, he choked it with unnecessarily high taxes.
It has long confounded Adam that so many believed Clark and Cullen were responsible for the economic growth. Nor has Adam understood why people put up with money being taxed away to give back in benefits. Working for Families is to Adam one of the worst.
And:-
Much of the additional revenue that Cullen exacted from New Zealanders was swallowed up and lost in the largesse of an already bloated civil service and on supporting the new categories of beneficiaries he introduced.
We are now left only able to speculate as to how much stronger the economy would have been heading into the recession had it not been constricted by such policies.
Vernon Small’s closing comment is perhaps an appropriate political epitaph, though whether it will be history’s verdict is another issue entirely:-
So retires from the House a hilarious, caring, clever, compassionate smart-arse
Comments are closed.
The same thing is happening in the UK right now. Tax “the rich” to give to your electorate and at the same time appeal to its worst sensibilities.
Michael –“We won, you lost. Eat that”- Cullen, if he had put his dry witted mind to it would have made a great standup comedian and could have had the audience rolling in the aisles relaying to them the buyback of Tranzrail and the planning of his overindulgent taxing schemes. Like all good comedians he had the sense to leave the stage at an opportune time.
I think the verdict of history will be much less forgiving than Small’s comment. I chose Small’s comment more for Cullen’s debating skills and his skills as a Parliamentarian.
He was no great shakes as a Finance Minister, as I noted I am confounded by that popular belief.
I agree with you he could have done so much more, but he was hidebound by not just ideology, but I suspect by the chip he had on his shoulder based on his family background.
Unlike my great-aunt who was a servant all her working life and believed in rising up and getting ahead. I tend to the view that Cullen saw levelling down as the aim.
For all his all his wit, in his day job he was banal.
With all the money he collected he didn’t pay that much off the Govt debt.. less than one third of what Richardson and Birch achieved before him off a lower GDP.. instead he settled for a $17 billion debt which is currently giving pause to our lenders.
In superannuation he was not straightforward.. creating three separate schemes. He could have taken his own Treasury figures of a Super crunch around 2050 and created a compulsory scheme for those under 30 and a pay as you go for everyone else.
In health, he had the opportunity to make use of the feeling of wealth to create an insurance scheme for uncomplicated and elective surgery through private providers and built up the public health system for the gruntier work.
He could have trimmed the welfare elements out of ACC and catered for disease as well as accidents.. as was proposed in the original scheme. He could have better funded the health charities and outsourced the mundane work of looking after people with long term disease and conditions.
For all his wit and the wealth bestowed to him, he was scared spitless to move beyond a Socialist model given away by such countries as Swden and Finland that embraced the use of the private sector in education.. and so on.
Let his own paraphrased words be his epitaph.. “I spent the lot” and implied “and left nothing of value”.
JC