Michael Cullen (politician)

Early life

Born in London, Cullen emigrated to New Zealand while young. He attended secondary school at Christ's College in Christchurch, and achieved an MA in history at Canterbury University. Receiving a Commonwealth Scholarship he then gained a PhD in social and economic history from the University of Edinburgh. From 1971 to 1981 he was a lecturer at Otago University, with a term as a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University from 1975 to 1976. On 16 December 2009, he received an honorary LLD from the University of Otago in recognition of "his contributions as an Otago academic and as a respected and highly influential politician".

Honours

In the 2012 Queen's Birthday and Diamond Jubilee Honours List, Cullen was appointed Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Member of Parliament

Cullen joined the Labour Party in 1974, and served on the party's Executive and Council between 1976 and 1981. In 1981 he was elected MP for the Dunedin electorate of St Kilda.

Fourth Labour Government

When Labour entered government in 1984, Cullen became Senior Whip. Due to his knowledge of economics, Cullen became increasingly involved in the disputes surrounding the Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas, who supported the liberalisation of trade and the sale of state assets plus deep tax cuts. These goals, which were against traditional Labour policies, angered both party members and the public. When the Prime Minister, David Lange, attempted to limit the influence Douglas had on the government's direction, Cullen became involved on Lange's side. After Labour's re-election in 1987, Cullen was made Associate Minister of Finance (an attempt by Lange to provide an anti-reform counterbalance to the radical Douglas) and Minister of Social Welfare (an attempt to limit the impact of the reforms in that area).

Eventually, Douglas was forced to resign, but a month later the political controversies around the dispute prompted the resignation of Lange himself. Douglas was succeeded as Finance Minister by David Caygill, one of his allies (albeit a considerably less radical one). Cullen was made Associate Minister of Health, again to reduce the effect of reforms on that sector.

Opposition

When Labour lost the 1990 election (something attributed by many people to public anger at Douglas' reforms, and disarray within the Labour Party), Cullen returned to being Labour's spokesperson on social welfare. The following year, he replaced David Caygill as the party's chief finance spokesperson. When Caygill retired from politics in 1996 Cullen took the deputy leader's post as well. Before Labour's position in the polls improved, Cullen was also involved in an attempt to oust Helen Clark as party leader, which was not successful. The two do not appear to bear each other any resentment, however. Cullen has claimed to be happy with his position as second, saying that in terms of personality, he is "a number two sort of person". Many commentators agree, believing that Cullen's strength lies more in administration than leadership.

Fifth Labour Government

Labour's electoral victory in 1999 resulted in Cullen becoming Minister of Finance. After the 2002 election, the electoral support for Labour's junior coalition partner (the Progressive Party) was not sufficient to justify its leader holding the Deputy Prime Minister position, resulting in Michael Cullen replacing Jim Anderton as Deputy Prime Minister.

In 2004 Cullen declared his support for the monarchy of New Zealand, he was "a sort of token monarchist in the Cabinet these days". However, in 2010 he repudiated that stance, taking the view that New Zealand should move towards a republic once the Queen's reign ends.

In 2005 Helen Clark appointed Cullen to the post of Attorney-General following the election of Margaret Wilson as Speaker of the House. His appointment became controversial because of his non-legal background (only one other non-lawyer had previously held the post) and because of his previous criticisms of the judiciary, including of the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias. His term in the position ended following the 2005 general election. However, with the resignation of David Parker in March 2006, Cullen took over the position again.

He had a reputation as one of the Labour Party's best parliamentary debaters, and is known for his sometimes "acerbic" sense of humour.

Budget 2006

Dr Cullen presented his seventh budget in 2006 as Minister of Finance. Cullen's guiding principle was, he stated, "The fool who spends on the upturn will find himself broke on the downturn".

Budget 2007

Labour's eighth budget in 2007 reduced company tax from 33% to 30% and introduced a 15% research and development tax credit. It also made a number of changes to the KiwiSaver scheme.

Budget 2008

The New Zealand economy entered recession in December 2007. Cullen's final budget was delivered in this context in May 2008; it reduced income tax on the first $9,500 earned from 15% to 12.5%, and the company tax rate from 30% to 29%.

Resignation

The day after the defeat of Labour in the 2008 general elections and Helen Clark's resignation as party leader, Cullen announced his resignation as deputy leader of the Labour Party. When he resigned from Parliament in 2009 he was replaced as an MP from the party list by Damien O'Connor.