Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

Treasury have reported an operating surplus of $4.4 billion run by the Labour-led Government, in the first half of the 2005/06 financial year... well ahead of forecasts.

Despite this, Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen told the Finance and Expenditure Committee yesterday, “People who think there should be tax cuts on the back of big surpluses should be taken out and quietly drowned”. What a charming man(/Annunaki?)

Apparently, the $4.4 billion surplus is so small, that Dr Cullen's now threatening to cancel his highly touted "Chewing Gum Tax Cuts". (Damn, that 67 cents a week extra would have come in handy! ;-)