Michael Cullen

... finance minister of the past.

If you look at Michael Cullen under Helen Clark, he was seen as Mr. Scrooge all the way through that government.

Never promised tax cuts, never promised anything.

Ended up in surplus.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think one of the interesting things is that, uh, we haven't really had a, um, a national conversation about tax settings for, for KiwiSaver for some time.

The last time it was really looked at was, um, uh, through the tax working group that Michael Cullen chaired.

Um, I was actually, uh, part of that working group, and they, they looked at the tax settings for, particularly for lower income people around KiwiSaver.

So this is the first time really, uh, you know, a mainstream political party has, has looked at tax.

Oh, yes, I've got to give Helen a credit.

Her and Michael Cullen were a great duo.

I mean, history will judge them very kindly.

Do you expect, want, or demand to be a cabinet minister should the centre-right coalition get across the line?

I think, look, what you see is what you get.

I mean, all politicians I know, well I do when I, I came along, you know, I looked at Helen Clark, I looked at, you know, John Howard, I looked at Michael Cullen, I looked at a whole bunch of people, Winston Peters, and I tried to sort of say, "Okay, what do I think makes them successful or be able to move the argument, you know, through their oratory?" Or what- whatever it was, right? And in the end, you know, I tried to take out of some things I thought might work for me, but then very quickly I went, "Okay, but I am who I am." You know, I'm...

You know, yes, my diction's not perfect and, you know, I know pronounce some of my words properly and sometimes I even make them up.

You know, but, you know, it's just the way it goes.

But it's a real threat, right?

I, I've initially [laughs] been quite dismissive of the view that that would be the case because, to be blunt, um, I haven't spent my time analyzing every bit of it, and I'm so used to ha- You know, when I was prime minister, we had between 15 to 17, I think, you know, list MPs.

And so when you're down at five, I sort of, you know, thought, "Oh, you know, I've heard it all before." In 2005, you know, everyone ran around saying, "Oh, Michael Cullen might not get back and he was number one on the list" type of thing.

So I've always been pretty dismissive of that.

... because of changes in the electorate map and because of the areas that vote versus the areas that don't and the areas that have been most impacted by the government versus the ones that haven't, you could see a split between National, Act, and Labor go right through the middle, and it would be the first time in something like 50 years that a Labor Party MP has represented that electorate.

But that's the, the area that I think Michael Cullen came from or the Michael Cullen Memorial is there.

Or not Michael Cullen.

Um, it was Michael Joseph Savage.

I knew it was a Michael from Labor.