KEY POINTS:
Michael Cullen was not among friends when he addressed a hotel ballroom full of suited business people in Auckland yesterday.
This was a crowd that had just voted nine to one against his boss, when asked by the Herald's Mood of the Boardroom survey who they preferred as Prime Minister.
But the Finance Minister retained his sense of humour, thanking "both his supporters" at the breakfast event to launch the survey results.
He swung into well-practised action, deftly outlining Labour's strategy for keeping the besieged economy afloat.
He offered the R&D tax credit and the China Free Trade Agreement as examples of business friendliness. KiwiSaver and the portfolio investment entity regime had encouraged much-needed savings habits in New Zealanders, he said.
And he promised the Schools Plus project, together with the skills strategy developed in conjunction with Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions, would lift workforce standards.
He name-dropped, announcing he would be speaking to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice later in the day for a credit crisis update and bonding session.
And he promised imminent details of the much-awaited wholesale bank deposit guarantee scheme.
In reply, National finance spokesman Bill English did not squander the opportunity to blast Labour over its attempt to connect John Key with $75 million of sham foreign exchange deals in the 80s.
Instead of offering stewardship in a recession, Labour was engaging in "hatching a dirty little plot to smear the Opposition Leader", he said.
He offered National's antidote to the ailing economy - lower taxes, restrained government spending, simplified regulation, a literate and numerate workforce, and a $3.7 billion spend-up on infrastructure.
All no doubt music to his audience's ears. The shadow finance minister was forced to defend the claim National was "ghetto-ising" the Cullen Fund by requiring 40 per cent to be invested into New Zealand.
National would aim for the 40 per cent mark, and it was up to the fund's guardians to invest where they saw a good balance of risk and return. Government's role was to create the opportunity, he said. "We will take capital from anywhere we can if we have profitable investment opportunities."
Cullen retorted that if the fund could be manipulated in this way then there was "no further defensible line" in keeping sticky government fingers out of the pot.
They may not have been his biggest fans, but the corporate crowd would have no doubt enjoyed the sound of such centre-right policy coming from the man in red.
