"\u003C!DOCTYPE html\u003E\u003Chtml xmlns:xlink=\u0022http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink\u0022 xmlns:xsi=\u0022http://www.w3.org/2007/XMLSchema-instance\u0022 xmlns:mml=\u0022http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Chead\u003E\n    \u003CMETA http-equiv=\u0022Content-Type\u0022 content=\u0022text/html; charset=utf-16\u0022\u003E\n    \u003Cmeta name=\u0022viewport\u0022 content=\u0022width=device-width, initial-scale=1\u0022\u003E\n  \u003C/head\u003E\n  \u003Cbody style=\u0022font-family:sans-serif; font-size:100%;\u0022\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000001\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022f08dc39642f6451a86d8cdd756c71665\u0022\u003EThursday, 24 May 2012\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000003\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022bbe562645772450e87fc99e376dd9354\u0022\u003EThursday, 24 May 2012\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000002\u0022\u003EMr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000004\u0022\u003EPrayers.\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000005\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022e968b99aaf084341b4189467f15ce3f2\u0022\u003EAppropriation (2011/12 Supplementary Estimates) Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000006\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00222e393b0da34b42279e6caaa0fe029352\u0022\u003EProcedure\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022 data-id=\u0022d248df56519a475d8f5f022b8432eaed\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000007\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022d248df56519a475d8f5f022b8432eaed\u0022\u003EHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):\u003C/span\u003E I hereby present the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand and supporting information for the year ending 30 June 2012 (B.7).\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022 data-id=\u00224c7cec32adc74add9fb0176e217f7f22\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000008\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00224c7cec32adc74add9fb0176e217f7f22\u0022\u003EMr SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: That paper is published under the authority of the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000009\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u00222d8476d69f8c4638aa25fae2af35f83b\u0022\u003EAppropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000010\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022769897b2aa554f31b8f7646ce4e84511\u0022\u003EProcedure\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022 data-id=\u002299df9a7cbefa4862b56aa768f6a54be1\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000011\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002299df9a7cbefa4862b56aa768f6a54be1\u0022\u003EHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):\u003C/span\u003E I hereby present the 2012 Budget Minister\u2019s Executive Summary, the speech, the Fiscal Strategy Report (B.2.), the Economic and Fiscal Update (B.3), the Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2013 (B.5), the information supporting the Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2013 (B.5A Volumes 1-10), and the departmental statements of intent.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022 data-id=\u0022ec8c2a1c3d174d88b6c8e23221408f54\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000012\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ec8c2a1c3d174d88b6c8e23221408f54\u0022\u003EMr SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Those papers are published under the authority of the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000013\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022eb3e9b39d3c14b9c8babce36a45dace0\u0022\u003EFirst Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022 data-id=\u0022e3bf847bc3dc4c92bac546bd727e860a\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000014\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e3bf847bc3dc4c92bac546bd727e860a\u0022\u003EHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill be now read a first time. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00223995cdad2d0146f9a51891065b213bb8\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022 data-id=\u0022a91825ed087c4699a9713f7a8cea7ada\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000015\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a91825ed087c4699a9713f7a8cea7ada\u0022\u003ERt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader\u2014NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. On this side of the House we observed the ACT Party leader. He intimated no vote at all. So how\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022 data-id=\u0022bb6b7914a82f4a9f971e40c96fe9a70f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000016\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ac169d29-4849-42c2-a4a7-f344fd416503\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022bb6b7914a82f4a9f971e40c96fe9a70f\u0022\u003EMr SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Order! The leader of the ACT Party recorded a vote; I heard him do so.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000017\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00226b7f1e16cb374c2c9776c67822f14566\u0022\u003EBudget Statement\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000018\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00228445c855b8484c75b40646918221c865\u0022\u003EBudget Debate\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000020\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u00229288750d35014aa7b461d67b65133858\u0022\u003EBudget Debate\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022 data-id=\u0022c73e0d16e4b54336a0ef25b67f66372f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000019\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c73e0d16e4b54336a0ef25b67f66372f\u0022\u003EHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill be now read a second time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000021\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s a privilege to deliver the National-led Government\u2019s fourth Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis Budget is about investing in our future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000023\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt shows the Government is responsibly managing its finances. We are on track to post an operating surplus in 2014/15, when we will start bringing debt down to prudent levels.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000024\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThat is a considerable achievement given the difficulties New Zealand has faced over the past three years:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000025\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EA sharp recession that started in early 2008.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000026\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Global Financial Crisis, which is still being felt around the world.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000027\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe destructive earthquakes in Canterbury.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000028\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EGood fiscal management is important because it helps us pursue the other three priorities of this Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000029\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe first of these is building a more productive and competitive economy. The New Zealand economy lost competitiveness and built up large imbalances during the 2000s.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000030\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThose imbalances have to be reversed if we are to achieve sustainable growth.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000031\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Budget is another step in creating an innovative and productive economy that sells more to the world - where people have the jobs, opportunities and higher incomes to get ahead here in New Zealand.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000032\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ESecondly, the Government is committed to delivering better public services.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000033\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Budget shows we are continuing to reform public services to deliver better results, protect the vulnerable in our society, and at the same time bring down many of the longterm social costs that drive public-sector spending.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000034\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnd thirdly, the Budget continues the Government\u2019s strong commitment to rebuilding Christchurch and the surrounding areas.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000035\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ECollectively, these priorities are about building a brighter future for New Zealanders from all backgrounds and walks of life.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000036\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWorking constructively with the ACT, United Future and M\u0101ori Parties, we will continue to make balanced and fair decisions to support all New Zealanders through challenging times and put the economy on a more competitive footing for the longer term.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000037\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000038\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe New Zealand economy has grown modestly but steadily, despite significant headwinds.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000039\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe efforts of all New Zealanders, supported by the Government\u2019s policies, are delivering results in difficult circumstances.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000040\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ESince the recession, the economy has expanded in nine out of the past 10 quarters.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000041\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ELooking ahead, growth is forecast to rise to more than 3 per cent in 2014/2015.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000042\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThough moderate by historical standards, New Zealand\u2019s growth outlook is stronger over the next few years than that forecast for the Euro area, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and Canada. It\u2019s similar to forecast growth in Australia.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000043\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EHouseholds and businesses have started to save and pay down debt. New Zealand\u2019s household savings rate is positive for the first time in a decade, and is forecast to increase to almost 4 per cent by 2016.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000044\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThat is a positive and encouraging sign.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000045\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIncreased savings will temper economic growth a little in the short term, but over time will leave New Zealand considerably less vulnerable to economic shocks.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000046\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EJob creation is picking up. Over the past two years, 60,000 more people have been employed, and the Treasury expects a net 154,000 new jobs over the next four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000047\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EUnemployment is forecast to drop below 5 per cent by 2015.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000048\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EGrowth in the near term will be driven by a number of factors.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000049\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe rebuilding of Christchurch will be a key driver of domestic activity and is expected to contribute about one percentage point to annual growth in each calendar year from 2012 to 2016.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000050\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOur two largest trading partners \u2013 Australia and China \u2013 are forecast to maintain reasonable growth rates, therefore keeping up demand for our exports. We are also well placed to benefit from trade with other fast-growing economies in the Asia Pacific region.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000051\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnd our terms of trade are expected to remain relatively high on the back of demand for our major export commodities.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000052\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThese opportunities will be supported by Government policies to encourage businesses to invest, grow, and employ.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000053\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EHowever, the global environment remains volatile.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000054\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn particular, the Euro area and the United Kingdom have yet to resolve the huge problems caused by a long-term reliance on debt and government spending to drive economic growth.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000055\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis global weakness and volatility means New Zealand must focus on the issues it can directly control, including getting back to surplus, reducing government and private sector debt, and improving competitiveness.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000056\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ENew jobs are created and incomes grow only when businesses have the confidence to invest, take risks to employ more people, and pay better wages from higher revenues.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000057\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EGrowth in the 2000s was built on unsustainable foundations \u2013 excessive spending, including from the Government, and high levels of household debt.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000058\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are moving towards growth that is driven by savings, exports, and productive investment in the parts of the economy that trade with the rest of the world.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000059\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt is within this context that I present Budget 2012.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000060\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000061\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI want to talk first about responsible financial management, before I go on to talk about the other three, equally-important, priorities of this Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000062\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOver the past three years, the Government has faced very considerable fiscal challenges.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000063\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn 2008, net government debt was $10 billion. Today it stands at $50 billion, and is forecast to reach more than $70 billion before we return to surplus and start paying-down debt.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000064\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThat build-up in government debt has been the appropriate response to the triple shocks of a domestic recession, the Global Financial Crisis, and the Canterbury earthquakes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000065\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe alternative would have been to dramatically slash spending or dramatically increase taxes, both of which would have brought considerable pain to households and damaged the economy at a time when the recovery was still fragile.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000066\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government chose to run larger deficits and absorb much of the impact of these shocks on its own balance sheet to protect vulnerable New Zealanders and enable the economy to get back on track.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000067\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBut, as we made clear at the time, this could not continue indefinitely.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000068\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ESo the Government maintained spending, but slowed its growth significantly.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000069\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs an illustration, over its last four Budgets, from 2004 to 2008, the previous Government\u2019s final-year spending on new discretionary operating and revenue initiatives totalled around $15 billion.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000070\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EFor this Government, the corresponding figure over four Budgets is about $750 million.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000071\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis Government\u2019s discipline means New Zealand is on track to return to fiscal surplus in 2014/15, and then to start reducing debt.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000072\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe forecast fiscal surplus in 2014/15 is $197 million. This surplus is forecast to grow to $2.1 billion in 2015/16 and $4.4 billion in 2016/17.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000073\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000074\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThese surpluses will allow the Government to rebuild New Zealand\u2019s resilience to further shocks, help lift national savings, keep interest rates lower for longer, take pressure off the exchange rate, and reduce future finance costs.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000075\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EA significant surplus will also give us choices when it comes to public services which we don\u2019t have while we\u2019re running deficits.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000076\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis Budget takes a number of balanced decisions to ensure the Government reaches surplus in 2014/15.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000077\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThese decisions include running a zero Budget again this year, where $4.4 billion of new operating spending over the four-year forecast period is matched by a combination of savings and revenue initiatives.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000078\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government is making significant new investment in priority areas, while at the same time keeping a tight rein on growth in spending and public debt.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000079\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn terms of savings initiatives, we are continuing to reprioritise existing spending to ensure New Zealanders receive better public services, especially in health, education, welfare, law and order, and science and innovation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000080\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis will allow core Crown expenses to fall progressively from 33.5 per cent of GDP in 2011/12, to 30.2 per cent of GDP in 2015/16.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000081\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are also focusing on improving the effectiveness of spending across the board.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000082\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EEffective public services that get results are good for individuals and their families, and will also generate sustainable long-term savings.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000083\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn terms of revenue initiatives, the Budget continues the Government\u2019s focus on broadening the tax base, closing tax loopholes, and improving the fairness of the tax system.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000084\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis builds on the measures introduced in Budgets 2010 and 2011.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000085\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Inland Revenue Department will receive an extra $78.4 million to further improve its tax auditing and compliance functions. These extra compliance activities are estimated to have a net positive impact on the operating balance of $345.4 million over the four years to 2015/16.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000086\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are also broadening the tax base by:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETightening the rules for deducting costs of assets that are used both by their owners and rented out for income, such as holiday homes, boats, and aircraft.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EPutting changes to livestock valuation rules into Budget legislation to prevent farmers who change valuation schemes receiving an unintended tax break.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000089\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ERemoving three tax credits that no longer fit the purpose for which they were created.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000090\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETogether, these changes will save about $410 million over the next four years, and I thank the Honourable Peter Dunne for his work in this area.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000091\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000092\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWhen the Budget is in sufficient surplus, the Government is committed to resuming contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. On current forecasts, this is expected to happen in 2017/18.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000093\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EFurthermore, decisions will also need to be made on the rate of debt repayment, to meet the Government\u2019s longer-term objective of reducing debt to 20 per cent of GDP by 2020.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000094\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EResuming New Zealand Superannuation Fund contributions and repaying debt will require an on-going commitment to responsibly manage surpluses.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000095\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 proposes changes to the fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act to reinforce fiscal disciplines.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000096\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are proposing additional principles for Part 2 of the Public Finance Act, which ministers will have to take into account when setting fiscal policy. These changes will bring more transparency to government spending decisions and how they affect the wider economy and future generations.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000097\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government is also consulting other political parties about the possible introduction of a spending limit, as set out in the National-ACT confidence and supply agreement.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000098\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI acknowledge the initiative on this issue of the Honourable John Banks.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000099\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000100\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe new operating allowances for future Budgets remain as they were, at $800 million for Budget 2013, $1.19 billion for Budget 2014, and thereafter rising at 2 per cent each Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000101\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis allows the Government to maintain some flexibility to deal with future spending and revenue pressures, while still achieving a surplus in 2014/15.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000102\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000103\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs I said earlier, good fiscal management is important because it helps us pursue the other three priorities of this Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000104\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ESo I want to turn to the first of these \u2013 building a more productive and competitive economy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000105\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Budget continues to support the wide range of actions the Government is taking to raise productivity and therefore create more jobs and raise incomes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000106\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI want to mention just a few of them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000107\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 contains $385 million of new investment over four years in research, science, and innovation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000108\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe need to support businesses and farms to innovate and stay ahead of the competition.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000109\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnd we need to ensure New Zealanders have the right skills to compete in an increasingly global labour market.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000110\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOver the next four years, Budget 2012 investments include:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000111\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$166 million to redevelop an Advanced Technology Institute, which will help New Zealand\u2019s high-tech firms grow, increase exports, and ramp up productivity.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000112\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$60 million to support a series of National Science Challenges, which will seek innovative solutions to specific questions of national significance.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000113\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$100 million additional funding for the Performance-Based Research Fund to support world-class research in New Zealand\u2019s universities.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000114\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$59 million to boost funding for science and engineering courses. Funding rates for engineering degrees will be increased by 8.8 per cent and for science degrees by 2 per cent.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000115\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn its first three years, the Primary Growth Partnership has stimulated more than $430 million in research and development investment from government and industry. A further $270 million of investment by the Government and industry is awaiting approval of business plans or negotiating contracts.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000116\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000117\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 continues the Government\u2019s programme of investment in productive infrastructure and other major capital projects.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000118\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn particular, the Budget establishes the Future Investment Fund. This fund will receive all proceeds from the Government\u2019s sale of up to 49 per cent of shares in four SOEs and Air New Zealand.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000119\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThese proceeds are expected to be between $5 billion and $7 billion.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000120\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Future Investment Fund will reinvest these proceeds in other public assets, such as modern schools and hospitals, over the next few Budgets. The Government will do this without having to borrow to pay for those new assets.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000121\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe have earmarked $1 billion of the fund for modernising and transforming schools as part of the Government\u2019s 21st Century Schools programme.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000122\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis demonstrates that the partial sale of shares in the five companies does not result in any net loss of publicly owned assets, but simply changes the mix of those assets.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000123\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government would rather build new schools and better hospitals without having to borrow more from overseas lenders, and still retain a majority shareholding in these companies.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000124\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe share offers will provide New Zealanders with an opportunity to invest their savings in large New Zealand companies and will help to improve the transparency and accountability of the companies.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000125\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs part of the Budget, the Future Investment Fund is allocating its first $559 million. This includes:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000126\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe first $34 million of funding for 21st Century Schools.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000127\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$250 million towards KiwiRail\u2019s Turnaround Plan.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000128\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$88 million for health sector initiatives, in particular hospital redevelopments.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000129\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$76 million for the capital costs of the new Advanced Technology Institute.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe expect to make a significantly larger contribution from the fund in Budget 2013, once the share offers are under way.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000131\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn addition, the Government is investing around $12 billion in improving state highways over the next 10 years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000132\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are also investing more than $500 million a year in improving and maintaining local roads, and completing the $2.1 billion upgrade of the metro rail systems in Auckland and Wellington.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000133\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThrough Transpower, the Government is investing $4.6 billion in upgrading the national electricity grid over the next 10 years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000134\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ENew Zealand\u2019s size and geographic isolation from the rest of the world mean communications technology matters.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000135\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThat is why this Government is investing up to $1.35 billion in the roll-out of Ultra-Fast Broadband and an extra $300 million in the Rural Broadband Initiative, currently under way.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000136\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000137\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs part of the Government\u2019s programme to deepen capital markets, the Budget last year made several changes to KiwiSaver.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000138\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe announced an increase in the minimum contribution from individuals and employers from 2 per cent to 3 per cent, to take effect from 1 April 2013.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000139\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAbout 15,000 New Zealanders a month are joining the scheme, and since March last year, total KiwiSaver funds have grown from $9 billion to more than $12 billion.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000140\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 further strengthens KiwiSaver.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000141\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ENew disclosure rules, to take effect from April 2013, will allow people in KiwiSaver to evaluate and compare the performance of different funds. Fund managers will be required to report their performance and returns, fees and costs, assets and portfolio holdings, and liquidity and liabilities.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000142\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn addition, the Government is today issuing the terms of reference for a review of KiwiSaver default-provider arrangements to ensure they are working in the best interests of investors.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000143\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government is also deferring its auto-enrolment exercise for KiwiSaver. Proceeding with auto-enrolment in 2014/15 as originally intended is now not possible without putting the updated forecast surplus at risk. Therefore, public consultation on auto-enrolment has been deferred until after 2012.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000144\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn building a more competitive economy, the Government will develop initiatives across its business growth agenda.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000145\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis will help businesses with the research, capital, ideas, skills, natural resources, and infrastructure that they need to grow, employ, and trade successfully with the rest of the world.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000146\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis is how the Government will support job growth.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000147\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000148\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnother of the Government\u2019s priorities is delivering better public services within tight financial constraints.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000149\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EA better-performing public sector is central to the Government\u2019s plans over the next three years. The Government wants to see better results and improved services, as well as reduced costs and more efficiency.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000150\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETo assist those changes, the State Sector Act, the Public Finance Act, and the Crown Entities Act will be amended, as recommended by the Better Public Services Advisory Group.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000151\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EEarlier this year, the Prime Minister announced 10 challenging results for the public sector to achieve over the next three to five years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000152\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe can help create better communities by achieving these results, which include: reducing long-term welfare dependency; supporting vulnerable children; boosting skills and employment; reducing crime; and improving interaction with government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000153\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe\u2019ve already announced one of the targets \u2013 85 per cent of 18-year-olds having NCEA level 2 or equivalent in five years, up from 68 per cent currently.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000154\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EToday we are announcing two more as part of Budget 2012.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000155\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe first is reducing prisoner reoffending by 25 per cent in five years. Reaching this target would mean 18,500 fewer victims of crime every year.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000156\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe second is increasing the rate of participation in early childhood education to 98 per cent, up from 94.7 per cent currently. This will ensure that as many children as possible have a strong platform for learning when they start school.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000157\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are still finalising our other Better Public Services targets and they will be announced by 30 June.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000158\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EProgress towards achieving the results will be reported publicly, so New Zealanders can judge for themselves how well we are doing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000159\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs we\u2019ve said, achieving these results will be demanding \u2013 in fact, for some of them, it will be quite difficult. We make no apology for that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000160\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000161\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EDespite tight financial constraints, this Government has made investing in better frontline health services a priority over the past three Budgets. This continues in Budget 2012.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000162\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOver the next four years, the Government is committing almost $1.5 billion extra to Vote Health, partly funded by $129 million of savings identified in 2011/12. This will:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000163\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EDeliver 4,000 more elective operations a year.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000164\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EProvide better service for cardiac and cancer patients.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000165\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EProvide $12 million to reduce rheumatic fever.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000166\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EInvest $133 million in disability support services.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000167\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn addition, the Government will provide $60 million in capital for new buildings and hospitals.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000168\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs we\u2019ve already announced, pharmaceutical co-payments will be increased from $3 to $5, up to a maximum of 20 prescription items per family per year, after which items are free.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000169\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EPrescriptions for children under six will remain free.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000170\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis is a modest increase that allows us to spend more on frontline health services than we would otherwise have been able to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000171\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs part of its wider health policy, the Government will also continue to increase tobacco excise by 10 per cent over and above inflation each year for the next four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000172\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe first increase will occur on 1 January 2013, followed by annual increases on 1 January in each of the following three years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000173\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EPrevious increases in the excise have reduced tobacco consumption, as smokers have given up or cut back and fewer young people begin smoking.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000174\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI acknowledge the work and support of the M\u0101ori Party and its ministers, the Honourable Tariana Turia and the Honourable Pita Sharples, in this area.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000175\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000176\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ERaising student achievement and improving the tracking of student performance is important for New Zealand and therefore a priority for this Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000177\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs we have confirmed, the Government is committed to the ambitious goal of 85 per cent of 18-year-olds with NCEA Level 2 or equivalent qualifications.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000178\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EReaching this goal means resources must be managed to get better results for all students.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000179\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EEvidence shows the single most important thing we can do to raise achievement is to improve teaching quality. So Budget 2012 makes a significant investment in this area.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000180\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOver the next four years, the Government will commit $512 million towards new frontline education initiatives. This takes the Government\u2019s total investment in early childhood education and schooling to $9.6 billion in 2012/13.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000181\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis Government wants to create a flexible, skilled, and professional workforce through these initiatives to support principals and teachers.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000182\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are committing an extra $60 million to lift the quality of teaching in our schools. This is in addition to the $304 million we are spending on professional learning and development for teachers in primary and secondary education over the next four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000183\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 also sets aside further funding to support priority learners. This includes:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000184\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$83 million in school operating grants.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000185\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$51 million to continue the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband in schools.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000186\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$48 million to increase participation by vulnerable groups in early childhood education.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000187\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003E$19 million to support M\u0101ori-medium early childhood education providers.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000188\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government will provide extra parenting programmes and relationship education in secondary schools at a cost of $4 million over four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000189\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe will also support a variety of youth mental health initiatives with an extra $17 million over four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000190\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETo increase investment in raising student achievement, and to manage the costs of increased primary-school-age children over the next four years, we are making small changes to current school funding ratios.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000191\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI have already mentioned some of the new initiatives in tertiary education.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000193\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIn addition, Budget 2012 invests in providing more pathways into work and further training for young people leaving school.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000194\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt provides an additional free 3,000 tertiary-based Youth Guarantee places at the cost of $37.7 million over four years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000195\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government will also continue to better target student assistance to where it is most needed and ensure better value for taxpayers.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000196\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EFrom 1 January this year, we implemented tighter income rules to ensure the student allowance is fair.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000197\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 confirms a number of further student loan changes from 1 April 2013, including:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000198\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIncreasing student loan repayments from 10 cents in every dollar earned over the income threshold to 12 cents.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000199\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWidening the definition of income for student loan repayment purposes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000200\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EFor student allowances, continuing the freeze on parental income thresholds until 31 March 2016.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000201\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETargeting allowances to first degrees only, and removing exemptions for long programmes such as postgraduate training, taking effect from 1 January 2013.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000202\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThese changes are consistent with the Government\u2019s intention to see better value for New Zealanders, ensure the longevity of the student loan scheme, and improve alignment with Working for Families and other social policy initiatives.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000203\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000204\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt is concerning for our future that around one in eight New Zealanders aged 18 to 64 is on a benefit, and around half of them have spent at least five of the past 10 years on a benefit.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000205\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis Government has embarked on ambitious reforms focused on supporting New Zealanders out of welfare and into work.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000206\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Budget invests $287.5 million over four years in the first phase of this programme.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000207\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis funding provides more education and training for young people. It will also focus on work availability and preparation for sole parents, widows, women alone, partners within the benefit system, and parents who have subsequent children while on a benefit.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000208\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe second phase of welfare reform will be implemented in July 2013. This will involve changes to benefit categories.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000209\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBoth phases of the reforms are a shift towards a new investment approach to welfare.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000210\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe investment approach provides greater transparency over the long-term cost of welfare, and focuses government agencies on reducing this cost through employment support and training.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000211\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000212\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 continues the Government\u2019s policy of staying strong on crime.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000213\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe justice sector, including the Ministry of Justice, and the departments of Police and Corrections, is developing new ways of working together and making better use of existing resources. This includes more flexible funding arrangements and shared use of staff and assets.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000214\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThis will allow the sector to focus on results \u2013 reducing total crime, violent crime and youth crime, and reducing reoffending. For example, the Policing Excellence programme helped reduce total crime by 5.6 per cent between 2010 and 2011.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000215\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAs I\u2019ve confirmed today, the Department of Corrections aims to reduce reoffending by 25 per cent by 2017.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000216\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ETo help achieve this, it will invest $145 million of reprioritised money from prison closures and cost reductions out to 2019/20 in rehabilitation programmes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000217\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EModernising court services will ensure that people can access services faster and more conveniently.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000218\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000219\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWorking with non-government providers, the Government is committed to improving housing affordability and providing assistance to households in need.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000220\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 provides funding of $104 million for this over three years. This will be used to trial greater innovation, diversity, and scale in the social housing sector.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000221\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government\u2019s housing policies will work alongside welfare reform to assist people towards independence.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000222\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are working with the housing sector to use our $15 billion investment in state houses and almost $2 billion of annual subsidies more effectively to house people in need.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000223\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government will also work with councils to improve housing affordability for all New Zealanders.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000224\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker, the Government\u2019s final priority is rebuilding Christchurch.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000225\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government remains absolutely committed to supporting the rebuilding of Christchurch, our second largest city.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000226\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe total cost of the damage is estimated at more than $20 billion, so it is without doubt the largest \u2013 and most complex \u2013 economic project in New Zealand\u2019s history.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000227\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI want to pay tribute to the work of my colleague the Honourable Gerry Brownlee and the many public servants, community organisations, and families who have worked so hard to help each other through this disaster.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000228\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EConsiderable progress is being made.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000229\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWork on about three quarters of the 1,000 buildings required to be partially or fully demolished in the Christchurch CBD has been completed. Some 13,000 repair jobs are under way across greater Christchurch.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000230\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EA significant number of infrastructure repair projects, worth about $820 million, have been completed, are under way or in the design stage.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000231\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnd nearly 5,000 of the 7,000 property owners in the residential red zone have formally accepted the Government\u2019s offer to purchase their properties.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000232\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAbout half of these owners have already settled, allowing them to move on and restart their lives.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000233\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000234\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government is providing considerable resources for the Canterbury rebuild.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000235\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe set aside $5.5 billion in Budget 2011 for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000236\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe established the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000237\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAnd we passed special legislation so the Government can step in where required to remove structural barriers to reconstruction.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000238\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ELooking ahead, the Government is developing a blueprint for the central city to take forward the draft Central City Plan prepared by Christchurch City Council in consultation with the people of the region.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000239\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThat blueprint will focus on anchor projects and precincts, and provide sufficient direction to encourage the investment needed for rebuilding.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000240\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government has assisted with land supply for housing by using special earthquake recovery powers to amend land-use rules to allow rezoning of residential subdivisions.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000241\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThere is now a significant amount of residential land available in greater Christchurch - potentially 26,000 sections over the next five years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000242\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EAbout 6,600 greenfields sections are expected to be released to the market within the next two years.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000243\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Government is determined that residents can rebuild and move into their new or repaired homes as soon as possible.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000244\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EFinalising the remaining residential land zoning decisions and the settlement of outstanding insurance claims is therefore a priority.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000245\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000246\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt is now almost four years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which set off the Global Financial Crisis and global recession.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000247\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ESince then, we have witnessed significant disruption to economies around the world, and that is likely to continue for years to come.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000248\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EThe Euro area and the United Kingdom are going back into recession this year. The United States has low and uncertain growth.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000249\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBy comparison, New Zealand is going through a moderate adjustment. We are avoiding the substantial cuts to public services and living standards that we are seeing in many other developed countries.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000250\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EOur outlook is more positive than most. We are a food-producing economy on the doorstep of a rapidly growing middle class in the Asia-Pacific region.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000251\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EProviding we stick to the Government\u2019s balanced and ongoing economic programme over the coming years, I am confident we will grasp these opportunities.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000252\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000253\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EBudget 2012 sets out the next steps in that programme.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000254\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s about investing in our future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000255\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s about implementing the Government\u2019s plan to build opportunities for New Zealanders from all walks of life.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000256\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EIt\u2019s about returning to surplus in 2014/15, when we can start reducing debt brought on by the recession and the earthquakes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000257\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are building a more productive and competitive economy, where New Zealanders have the jobs, higher incomes, and opportunities to get ahead in their own country.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000258\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are delivering better public services within tight financial constraints. And we are firmly focused on getting better results for New Zealanders and their families.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000259\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EWe are helping to rebuild Christchurch and standing beside the people of Canterbury.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000260\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003ENew Zealanders have shown great resilience through challenging times. Budget 2012 supports their aspirations for a brighter future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000261\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EMr Speaker,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000262\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022bb158206-360b-4757-8d72-f7d0994e1fb3\u0022\u003EI commend this Budget to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022 data-id=\u002293092e5c2d9f437dbdb3c026d23e2b9b\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000263\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002293092e5c2d9f437dbdb3c026d23e2b9b\u0022\u003EDAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition):\u003C/span\u003E If that does not get people flocking to the departure lounges all around New Zealand, nothing will. That is if they are still awake after that man just delivered that Budget. That man has delivered a Budget that has the worst growth in 50 years, has 50,000 people going to Australia, has delivered 50,000 more unemployed, and has 50,000 more people on benefits, costing us $1 billion. That is a zero growth Budget, a zero hope Budget, and a zero reason Budget for staying here in this country. I move, That the words after \u201CThat\u201D be omitted and the following substituted: \u201Cthis House has no confidence in this National Government led by John Key because year after year it has failed to deliver the economic growth and the growth in jobs, incomes and exports it promised, which has forced record numbers of New Zealanders to look for better opportunities in Australia, has failed to take the tough decisions needed to generate the economic growth to keep young New Zealanders at home, and, as a last resort, is selling our most valuable assets against the will of New Zealanders.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000264\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThe other day I popped into one of my local schools, and the principal was telling me that many parents at that school were coming to school with their kids who were really too sick to be at school, so that the kids could sit in the sick bay. The reason for that was that the parents themselves were too worried about taking a day off to look after their kids, and they had to go off and work. I also popped in the other day to get my car serviced and was chatting to the mechanics there. They are skilled guys, good guys. They have not had a pay increase in 4 years\u20144 years. GST has gone up, inflation has gone up, and their incomes effectively have gone backwards. All around the country there are people who are working hard, working longer, making the tough choices, and bringing their kids up in the best way that they possibly can. They expect a better deal\u2014they expect a better deal. They expect the Government to keep its side of the deal.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000265\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EWhat do they expect? Well, they expect to be able to send their kids to school and not have them sit in bigger classes. Class sizes have gone up\u2014they have gone up. If your kids are in year 1, you might have a class size of 15. But if they are in year 2, well, those class sizes can go up to about 28. So if your children just happen to miss out on a very special, important element of learning, they will not be able to have the same opportunity to catch up as they did before. I do not understand why this Government has brought out this policy, because Bill English when he was spokesperson for education said small class sizes would lead to \u201Cbetter relationships between families, teachers and students which research shows is really important for achievement, particularly disadvantaged kids.\u201D But Hekia Parata\u2014and she must be the teacher\u2019s pet; maybe she has got some sort of a thing with Mr English\u2014is saying \u201COh, Mr English, I know! I can raise class sizes for you. That will save a bit of money.\u201D That will save a bit of money! Well, that does not give our kids the best start in life. I am talking about all parents across New Zealand, and I am talking about my kids as well. I am a parent; they are going to be influenced by this change, as well.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000266\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThis is where the rubber hits the road. This is where the rubber hits the road for New Zealanders. The high-flying economics of a Budget goes over the heads of most people. But I tell you what they do pick up on. They pick up on the fact that their kids are going to have less of an opportunity now in schools than they did before.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000267\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThat is not where the front-line cuts start and stop. And that is a front-line cut of our future\u2014our future. That is a front-line cut of our future. But look at the other ones, such as the police: $400 million is going to be slashed out of the police budget. It is going to come off the back room, of course\u2014the back room. But the problem with that is that the police have to go into the back room to do the job of the people who were once doing the backroom jobs. That is what is going to happen, and it means that fewer police are going to be on the streets looking after you and me. As for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, what a debacle that has been. What an absolute and utter debacle that has been. Murray McCully, who has insisted on cuts to the foreign affairs ministry has managed to cut the very future of our trade relations with the rest of the world. In South America, for example, the number of our diplomats has been halved. That is the place where we are trying to negotiate a new trade agreement. It is the same with India. All over the world our future prosperity is being cut on the front line. Another front-line cut is in biosecurity. This is the very protection that keeps things like the Queensland fruit fly out of New Zealand. Fifty-four staff have been cut, $3 million has been slashed from that budget, and now we have a fruit fly infestation in New Zealand that has the potential to wreck our agricultural economy. This Government knows the cost of everything and the value of absolutely nothing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000268\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EWe have heard the various projections from the Minister of Finance, but do we really believe them? This is the fourth Budget we have listened to from this Minister of Finance. This Minister of Finance promised in 2009 to deliver real GDP growth of 1.5 percent over the last 3 years; he delivered 0.6 percent. In 2010 National projected real GDP growth of 3.1 percent a year, and it delivered 1.3 percent. In 2011 National projected real GDP growth would rise to 4 percent per year, and it delivered just 1.1 percent. So why today would we want to listen to Mr English telling us that somehow this projection is going to be better in the future? After three times\u2014after four times\u2014you get sick of listening to these projections that never actually work out.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000269\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EToday exports are down 17 percent\u2014$800 million down. That is the record of this Government. But do not worry about that. Do not worry about that because it can still talk it up. In 2011 this is what Mr English said. He said the economy \u201Chas in prospect the strongest growth for a decade.\u201D He said later on that New Zealand\u2019s growth was accelerating. It was not; it was slowing right down. \u201CGrowth is expected to accelerate in the second half of 2011 and through 2012.\u201D It is nowhere near it. \u201CA recovery in activity is now expected from mid-2011, with economic growth rising \u2026 and peaking at 4.0% \u2026\u201D. It achieved, as I say, 1.1 percent. In Budget 2012, this year, here he is again: \u201CThe Budget documents will show we are likely to experience reasonably robust levels of growth.\u201D \u201CReasonably\u201D\u2014what does \u201Creasonably\u201D mean? \u201CReasonably robust\u201D\u2014how do you have \u201Creasonably robust\u201D growth? Now he is saying that there is going to be a \u201Cmoderate adjustment\u201D. We have gone from \u201Creasonably robust\u201D down to \u201Cmoderate adjustment\u201D. At least Mr English is coming a little closer to the mark. The real mark is utter failure.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000270\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThis Government in its term in office has delivered the worst growth in 50 years. Take a look at this graph. Here are the various administrations since 1957. Here is this Government\u2019s growth record. Those people at the back are unlikely to see it. Yes, it is just above the line\u2014just above the line. That is disgraceful. It is the worst growth in 50 years. Fifty thousand people are going to Australia, 50,000 more people are unemployed, and 50,000 more people are on benefits. Rather than the Government confronting the big issues that this country needs to focus on, on looking through this Budget you see can that what it is trying to do is nickel-and-dime New Zealanders. One of its big announcements is that the tax credit that it once gave to paper boys and paper girls is being cut. That is being cut. That is what we are shooting for. It has just cut that tax credit, but it is only if you earn $45 or less. That is the tax credit that has been cut. But the good news is\u2014well, actually, there is a little more bad news about that, because it is going to be done retrospectively. I guess these people\u2014these paper boys and paper girls\u2014do not vote. I hope they remember who cut their tax credit. We are picking the pockets of our paper boys and paper girls around the countryside. But the really good news is babysitters will be exempt. So the Government does have a heart after all. Mr Australia\u2014Mr Speaker\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000271\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022aa453cc011b84dad8e7e333f103c60bd\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: Oh!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000272\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220e5295beda3c4d7bb539eb99364a2f3d\u0022\u003EDAVID SHEARER\u003C/span\u003E: Wait for it. We could call\u2014[Interruption] Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that. Perhaps Mr Key should be called \u201CMr Australia\u201D. Fifty-three thousand people are going to Australia. That is a record. In New Zealand\u2019s history, we have never had as many going to Australia as we have now. We have never had a bigger number. But listen to this. Who said this: \u201CWe\u2019re here today in Westpac Stadium. It holds nearly 35,000 people. And believe it or not, the equivalent of this entire stadium\u2014and more\u2014leaves every year to live permanently in Australia \u2026 I\u2019m convinced we can give them a reason, and a purpose, to stay in New Zealand. And that\u2019s why I want to be New Zealand\u2019s next Prime Minister.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000273\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226cd56057f0bb4ed68ea6645cb3ee7a70\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000274\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227af4056677a541b6865eb7cb7f9eb513\u0022\u003EDAVID SHEARER\u003C/span\u003E: \u201CMr Australia\u201D. That is who said it. Well, I can tell you that when it comes to 2014\u2014and I let the Prime Minister in on a little secret\u2014I have booked Eden Park for him, because he will not be able to fit everybody into Westpac Stadium this time round. I had a special word to the groundsman and he is going to roll out some spare seats, because even in 2 years\u2019 time there is going to be more, particularly after a Budget like that. This is a zero Budget, and there is zero reason for anybody to stay here in New Zealand. I can tell you that one of the reasons the unemployment rate is so low is that we lose 53,000 people a year. The Budget will bring our unemployment rate right down, so congratulations to the Government on bringing that down.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000275\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003ENational used to be a party of aspiration. I have not heard that word in a long, long time\u2014aspiration. This was the party that was saying we have to be aspirational for New Zealand. It is actually shooting down to the floor now\u2014shooting down to the floor\u2014looking at Greece and saying \u201CThank God we\u2019re not down there with Greece.\u201D It is a little bit like my daughter coming home and saying: \u201CDad, I didn\u2019t get bottom of my class, and I happened to beat the Greek kid in the corner as well.\u201D That is not what I would expect from my kids and it is not what I would expect from a Government here in New Zealand, either. A party of aspiration? No longer. This is a party that is shooting for the lowest possible bar.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000276\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EBut it has got a 120-point plan. Anybody who ever worked for Merrill Lynch would call it a laundry list. It is the sort of list that you put on your fridge with a magnet, and you go through the list: \u201CSell off State assets\u2014tick. Sell off pokie machines\u2014tick. I must remember to put economic growth on there; I just have not got round to that yet.\u201D But here are some of the Government\u2019s growth ideas: \u201CWe can effect things like labour laws and if you look at the jobs creation that we have been promoting: the Skycity convention centre, more mining and exploration, Australian companies coming back \u2026 they will create jobs.\u201D That is it? That is pretty desperate. A 120-point plan and that is all it is going to come up with\u2014the Skycity convention centre, which is actually funded from the pockets of problem gamblers? That is it? That is the economic plan for our future? Australian companies coming here? That is great, but they tend to be ones that are coming here for our low wages. So we have got some call centres and we have got tobacco-packing plants. We will take the jobs, but what we are really shooting for is high-skilled, high-value jobs, not the sorts of jobs that this Government is prepared to allow Australian companies in for.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000277\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThe worst thing about the economic plan of this Government is the sell-off of its assets, against the will of most New Zealanders. It says that mums and dads all over the country\u2014\u201Cmums and dads\u201D; is that not that a cutesy little saying\u2014will be \u201Cat the front of the queue\u201D. Which mums and dads? Which queue? Is that the queue of people waiting to get jobs at the local supermarket? No, it is not\u2014no, it is not. Mums and dads will not be at the front of the queue, because there is nothing in the legislation that will actually guarantee that mums and dads are going to be at the front of that queue.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000278\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003E Yet, despite that zero Budget, there is no shortage of excuses\u2014lots and lots of excuses. So we have the global financial crisis. Of course, that is being trucked out as the reason we are not doing so well. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000279\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229b301d8f89c84f2793ab0bcd460281eb\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: I thought it was over.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000280\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002276f2e642e2a44ebe9d9c00043c0ed6d9\u0022\u003EDAVID SHEARER\u003C/span\u003E: That is a good question. The financial crisis seems to be trucking along nicely for this Government, despite the fact that Australia has upped us 6:1, Canada and the US 2.5:1, and outside Europe we are second from the bottom\u2014second from the bottom\u2014in terms of our economic growth. Of course, the other excuse is the tragedy that happened in Christchurch\u2014and it is a tragedy. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot blame our economic situation on Christchurch and at the same time say that our economic growth is dependent, somehow, on the recovery of Christchurch. This Government has rolled out the excuses. Yesterday we had the same old, tired excuse of this Government having inherited it from the Labour Government. The Labour Government actually left it a surplus\u20149 years of surplus\u2014which it quickly ran into deficit.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000281\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003EThis country needs smart, innovative companies, and I will congratulate the Government on its beginnings in terms of putting more money into science and innovation. That is welcome. But it cut it last year. Last year there was a $14 million cut. When you look at what Labour brought in in 2008, and at what the Government cut, we are still at less than half of what Labour brought in at the end of its time, even with what the Government is bringing in today. Half!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000282\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022dfa851f0-ef7b-4834-bc41-1b3b645a3495\u0022\u003ESo we are not going to grow this country in the way that we should, with innovative, smart, high-value jobs. We are not going to get that sort of progress, where people can have the right education that they deserve. Out there, I know that parents are worried about their kids going to schools where they have to be in bigger classes. This Budget is more about what is missing than about what is in it\u2014like monetary policy that makes sense. Superannuation is something that John Key puts his fingers in his ears and whistles Dixie about, but I tell you what: in 3 years\u2019 time the entire superannuation budget will be larger than the education budget in this country. Then we will start seeing the difference between what the young people today have in terms of an education, or whether we have funding for our superannuation. This Budget is a zero Budget. It is a zero growth Budget. It is a zero hope Budget. And there is zero reason for people to stay on in this country. What they want to do is continue living here, working in high-value jobs, earning decent incomes, and leading decent lives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022 data-id=\u00221b6dee157d234c0487dc0ef059dc8e27\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000283\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00221b6dee157d234c0487dc0ef059dc8e27\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):\u003C/span\u003E That speech from David Shearer went about as well as the Facebook float did. All I can say is that that was a zero response to a zero Budget\u2014not one single idea. The kindest thing I can say about that speech is it is 20 minutes of my life I am never getting back. Do not worry, one person liked it: David Cunliffe. He was licking his chops like Scar from The Lion King; trust me, he is ready to pounce on Simba over there. Seeing as it is a zero Budget and there is not a lot of money to spread around, let me give some free advice to David Shearer: when David Cunliffe has a shave, be worried, because he is coming after you. This is all very interesting because according to\u2014[Interruption] Well, they were barking about that loudly out of the Skycity tent at the Rugby World Cup final. But do not worry, they will keep; we will come back to them. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000284\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003EAccording to David Shearer, New Zealand is not doing very well on a relative basis. That is his proposition. Well, the trouble is that to believe that, you have to live on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D. You see, this is the way it goes. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D New Zealand was not in recession in 2008. We did not have an overpriced housing market that was getting out of control; we did not have an export sector that had been in recession for 5 years. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D the previous Labour Government did not go to the 2008 election campaign and promise a deposit guarantee scheme that ended up costing taxpayers of New Zealand billions of dollars. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D the global financial crisis never happened. You see, according to them on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D, Greece is this happy little place where ruins are the sorts of things you visit, rather than an apt description of its banking system. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D the Christchurch earthquakes never happened\u2014never happened. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D trillions of dollars were never wiped off the global stock exchange. And on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D 24 is the number of people that the Skycity box can host for the Rugby World Cup final, not the unemployment rate in Spain. That is what it is like on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000285\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003EThe trouble is that that will not wash with anyone, because back in the real world New Zealanders actually know what is going on. They know there is a global economic crisis, and in their own homes they are doing exactly what this Government is doing. They are saving. They are paying off their debt. They are being conservative with what they do. In the real world New Zealanders in their homes know that you have to earn your way in the world. The only response they have on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D is to spend money that comes from someone else. You do not earn it; you just borrow it and spend it. In the end, when you spend more money than you earn, it is called Greece and you go broke.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000286\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003EDavid Shearer said there was not much to feel good about in terms of the New Zealand economy. Apparently, it is all bad at the moment. So let us have a look. According to a range of economists, over the next 3 years New Zealand will grow faster than the United States, the United Kingdom, the entire eurozone, Canada, and Japan. In fact, the\u2014[Interruption] That is right. In fact\u2014Mr Speaker, you were educated in Australia. You were not Mr Australia, although I am sure you would look good against the other contestants\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000287\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220b06a09621714dfbaa65df83db57b6a5\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: He would have won.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000288\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229f95f870d4af46708196119bfddf171c\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: You would have won. In fact, we will be growing at the same rate as the minerally very wealthy Australia over the next 3 years. But David Shearer says that that is not good enough\u2014that is not good enough. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000289\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ELet us have a look at unemployment. Yes, the unemployment rate in New Zealand is higher than we would like, at 6.7 percent. Let us acknowledge that. But let us also acknowledge the following: more people have jobs in New Zealand than ever before in our history\u2014more people have jobs. That is right. They are the facts. Over the last 2 years 60,000 jobs have been created in this economy\u201460,000\u2014and 154,000 will be created in the next 4 years. More people are employed as a percentage of the population in New Zealand than in Australia\u2014more people are employed. And thanks to the Minister for Social Development, there are a touch over 50,000 people on the unemployment benefit in New Zealand at the moment, which is 14,000 fewer than 18 months ago. Apparently, all that is not good enough!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000290\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ESo let us have a look at the unemployment rate just for a moment. New Zealand\u2019s unemployment rate is lower than that of just a few countries. In fact, it is lower than that of Chile, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Canada, Finland\u2014remarkably\u2014Sweden, Denmark, all of Britain, America\u2014[Interruption] It is true. It is also lower than that of Slovakia, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, the Slovak Republic, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, and Spain. And that is only including the OECD. They are all countries that have a higher unemployment rate than New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000291\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E The National-led Government has been very ably supported by our friends in ACT, United Future, and the M\u0101ori Party, and we thank them for their support and contribution to this Budget. They are sensible people who are committed to growth, jobs, and economic stability. So anyway, apparently\u2014if I did pick anything up from David Shearer\u2019s speech\u2014on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D it is easy to create jobs, apparently pretty easy. So let us do a little test shall we? OK. So let us go through all the pro-growth initiatives and let us just see for a moment which ones the inhabitants of \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D are in favour of. OK, so starting off, let me give you a small tip: it is longer than Letterman\u2019s top 10, but we will come back to that in a moment. So, No. 1, do they support future intensification and development of our agricultural sector? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000292\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002298b168fa4ea64d7cb4fce1e4465ae35f\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000293\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022100c8a6cba7349c995bea37a0fcc400b\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No, they do not. No, they wanted to put it out of business last time. Do they want more mining or more oil and gas exploration? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000294\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e4c13c89ce344e9796744fe7f5dbc23e\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000295\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002263d19b406ee645588d227bc8b2c57057\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No, OK. Do they even want Australian companies moving jobs to New Zealand? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000296\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224e79acd2343d461e85a0ad9848a63fdb\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000297\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ffdd9bcee4d04905b49b5c0e7673241b\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Do they want welfare reform and mutual obligation? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000298\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222d9586591f4d44ab89d41e1296a8da55\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000299\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229d410befd42f47f1a839f1323a5d28d4\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Did they support the 90-day probation period?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000300\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229825ef01bd3840918e7cdddbc9dad0d7\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000301\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e65aed9035fa43cb8ad4b3cd7a8b0702\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: Did they support any of our labour-market reforms?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000302\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221e1f24bf8ad94dd797b2fd628f48e278\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000303\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bcbc69bbd59e45d48e53fc4520c531f4\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: Did they support the $1.5 billion we put into ultra-fast broadband?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000304\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228f22b4ed5ce74ff785c97606d453155e\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000305\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229d6d4e3c819d49359844f3b932c88f59\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: OK. Do they support foreign investment in New Zealand? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000306\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c3e4580ef1c7424f99928feaec1366ee\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000307\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224c54fe15dd5d4cb7be7becd0a6517126\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Did they support the 3,000 jobs that came off making the two Hobbit movies? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000308\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a877455949164d109af1ee96f99a27ee\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000309\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226f49192a13a7488b9d36f3c85925d482\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No, they are Hobbit haters, as I said last year. Do they support the national convention centre?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000310\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221ef17a5c9849498783f07d0f259a3e54\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000311\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b9ba471800894acc9239a9ecf1c42e30\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: I tell you what, though, they will go to the opening, I reckon. Probably they will go to the opening. Well, that is assuming David Shearer actually knows that there is an opening, because apparently he did not know we were building a convention centre, which we announced in June with Skycity, and he went off to the world cup that was in October\u2014apparently, anyway. Do they support public sector reform? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000312\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002221468b4ec7f74224a798d6e3306816df\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000313\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002211726d5665bc43b996023e3dcc894e52\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Do they want a less onerous emissions trading scheme? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000314\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022378c6e5fb078435083da9c572201a63d\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000315\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022447c4d3ba1f643f6bfad5ebcdbbc040e\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Do they support the irrigation of the South Island or parts of the North Island?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000316\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002274ce4890cd2e4e278a25f23242fbbdfa\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000317\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d3614156b6b8473c9e3df17037bf289b\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: Do they support roads of national significance? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000318\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222e152d88c1034c64a4718ee7427e8253\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000319\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220d920d8607bf45c584ced1c6e9439cab\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. Do they support\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000320\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022011c20cb29b7415294cb959cbba69095\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000321\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022657188c8123b42358986ac9beafeca76\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No, they do not. Exactly\u2014they do not. Do they support reform of local government? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000322\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b9c678ab8a40480694236ea5b3cf5aa1\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000323\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d1183e4726604a419a7fd51d81abef9d\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: No. And do they support the $5 billion to $7 billion coming out of the mixed-ownership model going into 21st century schools?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000324\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a4597e0c8ed0422982bc9ffa9ff75d50\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000325\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f8f518ba5ec44933b1e87883d6c71435\u0022\u003ERt Hon JOHN KEY\u003C/span\u003E: That is right. They have agreed. They have passed the test. They do not agree with any pro-growth initiatives at all, not one of them. That is right. And David Shearer did not have one pro-growth initiative in his speech, but on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D\u2014where the three Davids like each other and Grant Robertson is not really auditioning to be the next leader\u2014money grows on trees and jobs are easy to create. I give up on them, because that is what the rest of New Zealand has done. It ain\u2019t like that in the real world.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000326\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ELet us go on to the Budget for a moment. It was a very sensible Budget for uncertain times, a very sensible Budget. Let us have a look at what it delivers. In health, over the next 4 years $1.5 billion will go into health\u2014$1.5 billion. There will be more New Zealanders getting elective surgery\u20144,000 extra elective surgical operations. More money is going into cancer care. There is more money to support the people of New Zealand, following a Government whose first action was to fully pay for Herceptin for women in New Zealand who have breast cancer. Free half-hour doctors\u2019 visits for under-sixes, more money for maternity care, more money for dementia care, and more money to eradicate a Third World disease like rheumatic fever\u2014that is what comes in Budget 2012. And all of that new expenditure comes because this Government knows how to manage the economy. It does not just borrow money from other people; it makes savings.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000327\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ELet us go to education\u2014$512 million more over the next 4 years. That is a spend of just under $10 billion. Those members talk tough over there, but this is the party that is actually putting more money into early childhood education for vulnerable M\u0101ori and Pacific kids. That is what is happening. This is the party that is lifting participation rates for early childhood education. This is the party that is putting more money into school operation grants. This is the party that is putting more money into professional development, so that we can have better teaching outcomes for our kids. This is the party that is putting $1 billion into 21st century schools, and this is the party that is putting money into the youth mental health programme.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000328\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ESo let us talk for a moment about those class sizes. Let us have that conversation on nationwide TV, right here and right now, because this is what has happened. In the last decade the number of teachers in New Zealand has gone up by 12.5 percent, so we approximately have about 50,000 teachers in this country. In the last decade it went up by 12.5 percent. At exactly the same time, the number of children went up by 2.5 percent, and the outcomes we were receiving from those schools have broadly plateaued. So here is our chance. Here is our chance to actually focus on teaching outcomes and quality teaching for all of those 52,000 teachers and kids. Just so that we understand what is happening, if your child goes to school for 13 years\u2014and we hope they do, in every one of those years\u2014for 4 of those years out of 13, the class sizes will rise; in 3 of them they will actually fall; and in 6 they will stay the same. David Shearer said before: \u201COh, by the way, it was 1:15 and it might go to 1:28 next time.\u201D Well, actually, the ratio was pretty similar before that, and for 90 percent of New Zealand schools across the country the change will be either plus or minus one teacher. So let us answer this question: do we want a few more teachers in this country, or do we want to pour money into lifting teacher quality and teacher outcomes? If you do not believe me, in your workplace ask your mate this: do you want your child sitting in front of a teacher who is a really good teacher, who is committed to the outcome of your kid with quality, professional development, when there are 16 kids in the class, or do you want to have a situation where there are only 15 in the class, but the teacher is no good and does not get quality, professional development? Well, I know which one I would rather have.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000329\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ELet us have a look at welfare. This is a party that is prepared to tackle the fact that 12 percent of New Zealand\u2019s working-age population is on a benefit. It has to change; it should be a lower number. They deserve better choices and better outcomes for their families. We are investing $287 million into more childhood education, more training, and more education for those people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000330\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003EThis is a party that believes in science and innovation, and puts its money where its mouth is: $326 million into science and education, $166 million into the advanced technological institutes, $60 million into the national science challenge, $100 million into the Performance-based Research Fund, and more funding for engineers and scientists. Yes, there will be $5 billion to $7 billion coming out of the mixed-ownership model, and yes, it will go to building 21st century schools and hospitals and advanced technological institutes. This is the truth: on the balance sheet of New Zealand, the assets New Zealanders own will be going up over the next 5 years; they will not be going down.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000331\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220083bcaa-f44d-4b70-97de-d091a209b88c\u0022\u003ELet us put it like this: the world is a pretty tough place and it has been tough for the last 4 years. Yes, there has been a global financial crisis. Yes, there have been earthquakes in Christchurch. Yes, there has been a recession that we have had to inherit. But in that time this Government has got on top of the mess we inherited from these people. We have got the export sector starting to grow. We are starting to properly fund ourselves. We will be back in surplus by 2014-15. We are protecting the entitlements of the vast bulk of New Zealanders, and in years to come when they look back on this Government will they say: \u201CThank goodness they are there and there is not all this debt.\u201D? Or will they say: \u201CWe wish they had those people who live on \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D, who just want to spend money from people who live on Planet Mars or some other place, and one day will have to pay it back with interest.\u201D? That is not leadership; that is passing the buck to a future generation of New Zealanders. They are wrong. This is a good Budget for the times. Bill English has done a great job.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022 data-id=\u00225117fdf009b24652ba1f7652b9f29f8b\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000332\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225117fdf009b24652ba1f7652b9f29f8b\u0022\u003EDr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader\u2014Green):\u003C/span\u003E New Zealanders are looking to their Government for hope, but this Budget, I am afraid, is a \u201Czero hope Budget\u201D. The National Government is slowly grinding middle and lower income earners into the ground while giving generous tax cuts to the wealthiest. National is slowly entrenching inequality and undermining a fair go in a land that should be a beacon of fairness, opportunity, and sustainability. If there is a burden to be shared, then it should be shared fairly. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000333\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EToday I will be discussing a Green vision of hope for New Zealand, but first I wish to acknowledge the land, the waters, and the natural environment of Aotearoa New Zealand\u2014the foundation of our prosperity and wealth. I acknowledge the mana whenua of our country and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the founding document of our nation. I acknowledge the generations of New Zealanders who have come before us, whose hard work laid the foundation for us today. I acknowledge those who are yet to come, and I hope we keep their interests at the centre of our thoughts. Finally, I acknowledge the work done by the Minister of Finance and the many public servants who worked on this Budget. We have our differences with the National Government, but the Green Party believes in a society where we can still respect those with whom we strongly disagree. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000334\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EWhen this Government took office at the end of 2008 the New Zealand economy was in trouble. It had skyrocketing overseas-funded private sector debt\u2014most of which fuelled the housing boom\u2014and a current account deficit of dangerous proportions. Government debt was low, but it was about to rise. When the new Minister of Finance took over he told us that it was important to rebalance the New Zealand economy away from a debt-fuelled consumption boom to an economy with more savings and a better external balance with the rest of the world. We were pleased to hear those words and we agreed with him. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000335\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003ENow the Government needs to be held accountable; 3\u00BD years later it is timely to ask whether the Government has achieved its rebalancing goal. Unfortunately for all of us the answer is clearly no. The current account deficit, the key marker of whether we are living within our means, is currently running at 4 percent of GDP, and Treasury is projecting it to increase to nearly 7 percent by 2016, in the figures that were released this morning. This one simple fact is an unmistakable sign of an imbalanced economy that is becoming only more imbalanced. It is matched by worsening international debt projections. A worsening current account deficit, as the Government has projected just today, means more debt and more of our land and productive assets being sold into overseas ownership. Budget 2012 fails to deliver any fundamental changes to the structural problems facing the New Zealand economy. National has failed, in 3\u00BD years, to rebalance our economy, and under this Budget there is zero hope of it improving. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000336\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EMoving from how the Government has managed the economy to how it is managing its own Budget, it is clear that it has made a number of poor-quality decisions that are now costing ordinary New Zealanders dearly. National has made much of the difficult fiscal position and has used it to justify services cuts and new user-charges for ordinary New Zealanders. National has blamed the global financial crisis and the earthquakes for the deficit. It is true that these events have had a significant impact on the Government books, but a large part of the deficit is due to poor decisions of this Government around revenue and spending. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000337\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EAnother feature of the revenue and spending decisions of Budget 2012 is that they appear to be driven by political imperatives rather than economic imperatives. For example, the Government\u2019s decision to defer automatic enrolment into KiwiSaver is bad for the economy, but it will help get it into surplus by a whisker, which is a political imperative. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000338\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EIn the 2010 Budget National introduced income tax cuts targeted at high-income earners, and said it would cover the reduced revenue caused by the tax cuts by increasing GST\u2014increasing the cost of living for middle and lower income earners. National\u2019s 2010 tax cuts gave the chief executive officer of Westpac a $5,000-a-week bonus\u2014an extra $5,000 a week\u2014which was funded primarily by the extra GST on middle and lower income earners when they were paying for their weekly groceries. Aside from the grotesque injustice of this, the tax switch was not fiscally neutral as promised. After 18 months of operation the 2010 tax switch has cost about $2 billion. At a time of high debt, to borrow $2 billion to fund tax cuts targeted at the most wealthy is both obscene and fiscally irresponsible. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EA Green-led Government would also be re-evaluating the quality of this Government\u2019s spending. Looking at National\u2019s spending decisions, it is hard to go past the reckless decision to spend $12 billion on new motorways, some of which did not even have a business case when National made the decision to build them. As the Minister of Finance admitted in the House yesterday, these projects have never been assessed against Treasury\u2019s own guidelines for major capital spending; they were chosen for political reasons. Building new motorways not only is a reckless waste of precious taxes but is impeding the rebalancing of the New Zealand economy, because it locks us into oil dependence right when the IMF has predicted that the price of oil will double within the next decade. We already spend $8 billion importing oil per year. National is locking us into spending even more\u2014money that simply flows straight out of our economy, worsening our current account deficit. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000340\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EAnother example of poor-quality spending is National\u2019s decision to subsidise greenhouse emissions of intensive agriculture to the tune, in the current Budget, of about $1.1 billion over 3 years. National has put its hand in the pocket of ordinary mum and dad New Zealanders and is taking a couple of billion dollars to give to dairy corporations. By subsidising agricultural emissions we are locking our agricultural sector into old greenhouse-intensive farm technology instead of using the price mechanism to incentivise the move to low carbon pollution. This pollution subsidy is compounded by the $400 million that was set aside\u2014which now appears to be delayed\u2014for irrigation subsidies to intensify agriculture more heavily. Although dairy corporations are receiving billions in Government subsidies, pensioners are being asked to pay more for their prescriptions. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000341\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EOne of the most fiscally reckless parts of this Budget is National\u2019s signature policy of asset sales. After driving the Government books deeper into deficit with irresponsible top-end tax cuts and poor-quality spending, John Key now tells us that we have to sell our assets to cover the fiscal hole that he created. In fact, asset sales make the Government deficit worse and the national accounts worse. As Treasury has set out in this Budget, selling assets would make the Budget deficit worse by about $100 million per year, as the lost profits far outweigh the cost of servicing Government debt. The research we commissioned from Business and Economic Research Ltd came to similar conclusions. Asset sales would also make the country\u2019s books worse because the dividend streams flow over to the offshore buyers of the companies. As Business and Economic Research Ltd concluded, the flow of profits to foreign buyers would result in a permanent deterioration in the external deficit and the level of external debt. Privatising assets risks New Zealand\u2019s opportunity to secure a share of the global clean-energy market, because it opens the door to those companies falling into foreign ownership. As we have seen with banking, foreign ownership turns key sectors of our economy into large capital drains rather than smart Green export platforms. The Green Party has joined with Grey Power, the Council of Trade Unions, Greenpeace, and other political parties to get over 300,000 signatures to force a citizens initiated referendum on asset sales. We will get the signatures, and we will establish clearly that the National Government has no mandate for selling the people\u2019s assets. Most New Zealanders do not want their assets sold. It shows only how out of touch National is that it thinks mum and dad New Zealanders have loads of cash sitting around waiting to buy shares in the privatised assets. Most mum and dad New Zealanders are struggling to pay for the groceries for the kids, after John Key put up the GST to pay for tax cuts for Paratai Drive. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000342\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThis Government has dug itself into a fiscal hole through poor-quality revenue and spending decisions, and now it is looking for someone else to pay the bill\u2014that is, ordinary New Zealanders and, most important, their kids. Successive National Budgets have cumulatively resulted in a slow creep of wealth away from low and middle income New Zealanders to the well-off. First, the tax cuts targeted at the rich were part-funded by GST increases for everybody else. Now National is going back to low and middle income New Zealanders to take some more. It is going to make them pay a bit more on their student loan. It is going to cut their student allowance. It is getting rid of beneficiary mothers\u2019 training incentive allowance. It has cut the funding for early childhood education again. People are going to be forced to pay a bit more for prescription charges. And the Government is increasing class sizes. The list goes on. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000343\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EIt is ordinary New Zealand families who are paying the price. Research released yesterday by the Green Party shows that an ordinary working family will be more than $11,000 a year worse off due to the cumulative Budget changes made by National, while high-income earners are better off by tens of thousands. Class sizes will not be increasing at King\u2019s College when Hekia Parata slashes teacher numbers in public schools; it will be ordinary New Zealand families who suffer. An extra $2 for medicine might not matter to those on Paratai Drive, but for the average person on \u201CMain Street\u201D it can make the difference between getting the medicine they need or going without. The Government is passing the costs of its fiscal choices on to those who can afford it the least. It is not doing it in one big hit, but everyday New Zealanders are feeling the pinch and seeing whom this Government really works for. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000344\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EIn contrast, the Green Party is committed to reducing inequality in New Zealand and ending child poverty. We know that investment in the early years of a child\u2019s life is absolutely crucial to reducing inequality, yet since 2008 the cost to parents of early childhood education has risen 20 percent under National. We know that many of our kids are living in temporary, unhealthy, and totally unsatisfactory homes. The Government\u2019s own report found a shortage of 70,000 homes, with up to 20,000 households in extreme need, yet National chose to wind down its investment in social housing, leaving thousands of poor kids cold and waiting. They will be waiting a long time, after this \u201Czero hope Budget\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000345\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThis Budget, like the others that came before it, is a threat to the environment. Our sparkling rivers and lakes are a key part of what makes New Zealand such a beautiful place to live in. Healthy rivers are essential for a healthy economy. Our \u201Cclean, green\u201D brand underpins our agricultural and tourism exports, but our rivers and lakes are under threat, mainly from dairy intensification. Over half of our monitored rivers are unsafe for swimming, one-third of our lakes are unhealthy, and two-thirds of our native freshwater fish are at risk or threatened with extinction. National plans to make it worse by subsidising more intensification with no clean-water rules. It is not a smart way to farm for the long-term prosperity of the country. National is, effectively, mining our soils instead of farming them, and that is not all it is mining. The Government is doing everything it can to promote unsafe drilling and mining. From its pro - fossil fuel energy strategy to the bill on drilling in our exclusive economic zone and subsidies for oil corporations, it is clear that the Government\u2019s priority is \u201CDrill, baby, drill.\u201D Unsafe mining is not the way to build prosperity in New Zealand. These projects will benefit very few people. Deep-sea oil will bring hardly any jobs for locals and hardly any royalties or taxes, and the profits will flow offshore, as the mining companies are mostly foreign-owned. The risks are high and they are real; the rewards will not even belong to us. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000346\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003ENew Zealand\u2019s future prosperity depends on investment in clean, green technology and sustainable jobs. The Green Party has a smart, Green economic plan for the New Zealand economy\u2014a plan that takes our national debt seriously while moving our economy on to a more sustainable footing. It is great to see the announcement today that the home insulation programme that the Greens initiated will now reach over 230,000 homes. We are in Parliament because we want to look after New Zealand and all its people, and this scheme is an example of how we can work with parties across the political spectrum to achieve that. We congratulate National on doing that. It is a shame that it has chosen not to extend the scheme to another 200,000 homes over the next 3 years. Such an investment would employ 4,000 people directly, and 10,000 people if you include indirect and upstream employment effects. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000347\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThere is a synergy between smart, Green economic objectives and the objectives of increasing the fiscal resilience of the Government in rebalancing the economy. When you look at our capital gains tax, for example, it enhances the fiscal resilience of the Government, but it also helps the economy rebalance by shifting capital away from the unproductive property sector. It also has the advantage of putting productive resource into the clean-technology sector, if we were to support that. A capital gains tax is also fair because it results in a decrease in inequality. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000348\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThis is just one policy for a richer, greener New Zealand. There are many others: reprioritising transport spending, putting a price on the commercial use of water, boosting research and development, higher standards for fresh water, higher mining royalties and creating a reserves royalty fund with the proceeds, a real price on carbon, supporting a living wage, lowering fees on KiwiSaver accounts by offering a public option, and retaining our State-owned energy companies and refocusing them towards exporting their renewable energy expertise. I am not offering a single silver bullet but a number of practical, costed alternatives that will address our dangerously high current account deficit and get our economy on to a more resilient, sustainable, and fairer footing. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000349\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThe National Government inherited a New Zealand economy seriously out of balance, living beyond its means, and then rocked by a series of earthquakes. It was a remarkable opportunity to remake our economy and put it on a more sustainable footing. It has failed to do that. When you inherit an economy that is broken, you have a unique opportunity to fix it. It is a moment when powerful vested interests are open to acting differently for the greater good of the nation. Unfortunately, John Key\u2019s Government has done the opposite. Our economy is becoming more unbalanced, the Government is more indebted, and public assets are threatened with privatisation. The casino owners, the miners, the property speculators, the oil companies, those who pollute waterways or our atmosphere\u2014they are all doing really well under John Key\u2019s watch, but National has turned its back on the belief that we are all in this together. But it does not have to be that way. I believe we can have a country with a smart, Green economy that protects our natural capital, enhances our quality of life, and shares our prosperity fairly. Such a country is a place where hope returns. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022 data-id=\u0022a7baa1d360ca4e7c93b7f76c11e2954e\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000350\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a7baa1d360ca4e7c93b7f76c11e2954e\u0022\u003ERt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader\u2014NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Today the country heard the \u201Cback to the future Budget\u201D from the National Party, as though it has been in some sort of time warp for the last 21 years. I can recall this Budget, because I have heard it before. I heard it back in 1991, when one called Ruth Richardson came here with the \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D. It helped create hardship and misery, and tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, State assets were sold, and large chunks of the country were flogged off overseas.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000351\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003ERemember those quotes that National signed up to back then? All are repeated today, as though it has learnt nothing. Remember how National was going to solve all New Zealand\u2019s economic woes and create a better future for all of us? This is what National said back then: \u201CFor too long we have struggled in a trap of economic stagnation and rising debt \u2026 No economic growth. Rising unemployment. And a huge overseas debt \u2026\u201D. Does that sound familiar? On New Zealand\u2019s external debt, this is what it said: \u201CWe now owe more to foreigners, relative to the size of our economy, than almost any other country of our kind.\u201D Does that sound familiar? On National\u2019s vision back then\u2014again repeated today\u2014this is what it said: \u201CA society where the disadvantaged have access to high-quality social services.\u201D That tells you that back then National had a sense of humour, as well. It was repeated today. I will go on: \u201CA society where workplaces are creative and dynamic; \u2026 A society that is prosperous, confident, and paying its way in the world.\u201D Which society was it talking about? But I heard it all again today. And it went on: \u201Cto transform New Zealand from a declining, debt-ridden country into a dynamic, enterprising, and prosperous nation.\u201D And on asset sales\u2014this is the best of all\u2014\u201CThese sales are designed to free the assets for more effective and competitive private sector management, \u2026 The whole economy will benefit.\u201D Here again is the same old mantra, 21 years later. Lastly, it said on the fiscal position: \u201CThe improved fiscal position has resulted in major improvement in the outlook for public sector debt.\u201D All repeated again today.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000352\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EAnd from that \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D came the glimmer of an idea for Ruth\u2019s less-than-gifted colleague a young Bill English. Not only did he listen back then to that speech in the House; sadly, he actually believed it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000353\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022595584c791e54ff39b555b3e9ab4828a\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: This member voted for it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000354\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ffdc733b3ef242e7bb9dd4218c8b04b1\u0022\u003ERt Hon WINSTON PETERS\u003C/span\u003E: I can recall him and Maurice Williamson\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000355\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a5283b48463e48b7aa1e03367a2572e1\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: This member voted for it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000356\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bca722df9c0b440b99bcb48afc59cb3b\u0022\u003ERt Hon WINSTON PETERS\u003C/span\u003E: Well, thank heavens for Maurice Williamson. I can recall Maurice Williamson and Bill English coming out of the caucus row we had, and do you know what they said to me back then, when I said \u201CYour economic policy\u2019s rubbish.\u201D? They said: \u201CWinston, what are you going to say when it all works out?\u201D. [Interruption] Oh yes, I remember. There is my evidence. \u201CWinston, what are you going to say when it all works out?\u201D. To which I said: \u201CAnd what are you going to say when it doesn\u2019t?\u201D. And 21 years on, there he sits, representing nothing, standing for nothing, and those members have learnt precisely nothing in that time. Today, in a sincere tribute to Ruth, Bill has decided to reproduce her 1991 Budget. What an act of political courage, what vision, what insight! It shows that they have learnt nothing. We hear the same old rhetoric, the same old excuses, the same old, same old.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000357\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003ETo be fair, though, this is a great Budget if you are not a pensioner with a big power bill. Last year 30,000 New Zealand households had their power cut off because they could not pay the power prices. To be fair, it is a great Budget if you are not an exporter trying to sell goods overseas with a dollar that is out of control, and without any Government support. It is a wonderful Budget if you do not have a student loan. It is a great Budget if you are not a mother or father with children to feed and educate. It is a great Budget for workers undecided about heading to Australia. It will certainly make up their minds. And it is a great Budget if you are not an elderly New Zealander with your grandchildren and children living overseas who knows that you are never likely to see them again apart from the odd holiday that neither you nor they can afford. It is a great Budget for those people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000358\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003ENew Zealand is living through its biggest economic crisis, as we know, since the Great Depression, and, as with last year and the year before, this Budget will simply make the situation worse. This crisis was created by financial manipulators in the United States. This financial crisis was the result of enormous greed\u2014right out of power and out of control\u2014in the States, and we all know who they were, and one of their former employees is supposed to be running New Zealand, but he is running New Zealand into the ground. This Budget is the latest example of New Zealand stumbling like a punch-drunk boxer from one panacea to the next. The reason why National has brought in this Budget is it simply has no ideas about how to deal with the situation. Its only answer is to privatise, sell, cut back, and hope.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000359\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EThe very rich will not be hurt by this Budget today.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000360\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d2dac8dd67734980a801f6ed313d7bb7\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: Great Budget. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000361\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222b6f93c1b19d4ecb84fbfafda2726cc3\u0022\u003ERt Hon WINSTON PETERS\u003C/span\u003E: The National Party knows how to look after its mates. As Maurice Williamson just said, it is a great Budget, but he did not add \u201Cfor his mates\u201D. Remember how National was going to make New Zealand the financial capital of the world back then? Remember, Mr Williamson, how it was going to make New Zealand the financial capital of the world? And then just 3 years ago John Key gave that idea a rerun. What happened? He could not even get the cycleway sorted out. It is still not complete. Every now and then, you know, a light bulb goes off in the brains of the neo-liberal Neanderthals in the National Cabinet. If the country\u2019s children acted like this, we would put them all on Ritalin.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000362\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EDid you notice today that the cling-ons on the starboard bow\u2014all along here\u2014never got up to clap? Not one rose to clap. Even though they were extolled and lauded for their help for the National Government, not one of those members rose to salute John Key\u2014or anybody else for that matter. Did you witness National\u2019s backbench clapping today? You know, hands clapping up here; knees knocking down there. Let me have the list, please. First of all, this member, Paula Bennett, because of this Budget, is going to be gone. Remember her? The Kate Moss lookalike. She is definitely gone. Next election, because of this Budget, she is out of here. Then there is somebody you have never seen before\u2014\u201CMiss Invisible\u201D, Nicky Wagner, from Christchurch. She is going to be gone\u2014out of here. Then you have got \u201CI work for the bosses.\u201D\u2014this woman. Remember that? You ask me which one; I do not know. But this one here, Kate Wilkinson, she is gone. Then you have got this one, who had a brief political flutter\u2014the one from Auckland Central. Most definitely, because of this Budget she is going to be gone\u2014out of here.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000363\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EThen you have got \u201Cgoodbye limousines\u201D himself, Pita Sharples. He is going to be gone, as we all know. Goodnight the good life\u2014all gone, out the door. Then you have got \u201CMr Somersault Whatever He Can\u201D\u2014Peter Dunne. He is gone. He is definitely out of here. I want you to see it because it is important. I hope it is on national TV, so you get to know what is going to happen here shortly. Then you have got \u201CMy life is tough at the bottom\u201D, Te Ururoa Flavell\u2014he is going to be gone. There is no way the M\u0101ori people are going to suck up to that Budget and let him get away with it. He is definitely going to be out of there. Then we have got the possum caught in the headlights, John Banks\u2014he is definitely gone. He is definitely on his way out.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000364\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EAnd this one is going to be very sad because this one is all about paradise lost\u2014he will be gone. Sam Lotu-Iiga is going to be out of the way. I like you, Sam, but your party let you down and you should have paid more attention at Budget time. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000365\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E Then you have got \u201CI\u2019ve had enough of this already.\u201D\u2014Tariana Turia. She is gone. She will not be able to take any more of this, because this is embarrassing. It is embarrassing to be seen to be signing up to that sort of economic rubbish and hoping to win an election.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000366\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EBut that is not all; you have got these ones here. These are on the list. This one here, Melissa Lee, is No. 34\u2014hello Pyongyang. No more National Party now. Then you have got Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi. Is there another corner dairy available? He will be on his way. There is no way he can last\u2014not with a Budget like that. Then you have got Jian Yang. I hope there is a Chinese restaurant in Dominion Road still not taken up yet. But he is going be gone as well. Nice men, but they are going to be gone. Then you have got Alfred Ngaro. No more \u201Ckia orana\u201D. The man from the Cook Islands, he is gone, because that is what happens when you are careless about a Budget. Then you have got\u2014if you have seen YouTube lately\u2014\u201CMiss South Carolina\u201D, Katrina Shanks. Have you seen the YouTube interview? She is gone. And then \u201CUncle Tom\u201D\u2014Tau Henare\u2014needs a new job. He is definitely going to be gone. And the man with the unfortunate name\u2014nice guy\u2014from the West Coast called Chris Auchinvole. A very unfortunate name, that. I will not say any more than that. And the last one is the ventriloquist\u2019s dummy\u2014Paul Goldsmith. He definitely is going to be gone. This man is definitely going to be gone.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000367\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EYou see, the point is they have not been paying attention. National is spending tens of millions of dollars dragging us into free-trade agreements that make New Zealand look like some sort of international knock shop. And in the meantime the exporters, the manufacturers, the provincial engine rooms of the economy, are totally forgotten. Look, today in the paper this is what this man said. He is hardly a New Zealand First or Labour supporter, I do not think. The Chief Executive of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association, John Walley, said he did not have high hopes. \u201CWill it do much for growth, no, because the Government has resiled from changes to monetary and fiscal policy \u2026 We will see much more of the same, widening current account deficits, more borrowing and more pressure on the currency [and] lower returns to exporters.\u201D All there in a nutshell. My advice to him is wake up and smell the coffee, and go and vote New Zealand First. He has a chance here.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000368\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EEvery month we lose a bit more of our manufacturing base. Every month another plant closes and more workers lose their jobs. This happens because our currency is way overvalued. It suits the speculators and currency traders\u2014the sorts of John Keys of this world. He made his money in that sort of exploitative, greedy, corrupt environment, and we all know it, because Merrill Lynch had to be bailed out by the American taxpayer\u2014as did the financiers and the overseas banks. This Government drools over mining in our conservation estate, and it gets excited about fracking for oil or drilling in a pristine ocean setting, but it will do nothing to keep one factory open or help one exporter earn one more dollar or keep one more job. Tough times are ahead. Dairy prices are falling. We are staring down the barrel of really hard times. The real people in heartland New Zealand did not create these problems, but this Government is going to make them pay for it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000369\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EYou know, advanced economies like Singapore, Sweden, Germany, and Norway have two things in common. First of all, they have high savings\u2014far greater than 10 percent of their GDP. Also they also have great manufacturing bases\u2014far greater than 25 percent of GDP. And we in New Zealand were once like that, when we were one of the greatest countries on Earth. We had savings well above 14 percent. Today they are negative. We had manufacturing as a percentage of GDP at 30 percent. Today it has now dropped to 13 percent. There sits Bill English, and the National Party front bench, and John Key, and they have got no idea what they are going to do about it. I mean, you do not have to be a rocket scientist, but I heard not one word about how they are going to redress these two critical factors to make us like those great countries. Once we were greater than all those countries.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000370\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003E We will never get rich again without tax policies that encourage high savings, research and development, and investment in productive plant assets that create high-margin exports and jobs. We will never get rich when we flog off our timber in its most raw state, without any added value. We will never get rich with a fishing industry part-owned by the Japanese, or using foreign rust buckets with poorly cared for kamikaze crews. We will never get rich with the great Marlborough wine industry, like all the others, up to 50 percent foreign-owned, and getting worse. We will never get rich with a political party, with its cling-ons, who has learnt nothing from this disastrous experience. We will never get rich if we ignore the need for new Kiwi IT industries to bloom and grow in a sympathetic tax environment that keeps them here, that also starts up the industry yet gives them reasons to stay.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000371\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003ETo be fair, though, this Government does one thing really well. The millions it spends on public relations, spin-doctors, consultants, media manipulators, and navel-gazers creates an appearance of normality where chaos prevails. It is spending $120 million just on selling these assets\u2014$120 million just on selling these assets. I am looking at the press up in the gallery. There is not one person there who could not do the job for free. Make an application, because, I tell you, this is exploitation of the very worst sort. And do you know what the $120 million is going to? In some cases to Aussie banks to give us independent advice about how we should sell the assets. We are going to give Aussie banks all these millions to give us independent advice about how to sell the assets.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000372\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EThis is a rotten Budget. It contains all the putrid elements of 20 years of failure. It did not work in 1991-92, and it will not work 20 years later, in 2012. But there was one great benefit from the 1991-92 Budget, and do you know what it was? Well, we booted the legs out of first past the post, and we got MMP. There was one great benefit. We saw these people sell the party down the line\u2014as Maurice and them all did. They could not wait to sell the party out, and down the tubes they went. They went from the biggest victory ever in 1990 to 3 years later a hung Parliament and MMP. So there will be some good coming out of this, and do you know what it is going to be? An early election. For 21 years the Minister of Finance has come to Parliament at great expense to the long-suffering people of Dipton, and the rest of the taxpayers, and guess what he has learnt? He has learnt absolutely nothing in all those years since Ruth gave that stupid Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000373\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EBut, of course, who else is in charge of this? Well, \u201CMr Spray and Walk Away\u201D himself. Someone who was headhunted by, of all people, Michelle Boag, who was found to have tried to corrupt a commission of inquiry in this country. Well that did not stop her from going on to be the National Party president. She was caught red-handed trying to corrupt the wine-box inquiry, and she headhunted him. How appropriate. He is a man who trained in principles and ethics and sharp business practice at Merrill Lynch, an outfit engaging in every shonky business practice that almost collapsed the Western society and economies back in 2007-08. That is his background. I know that there are people in this country who think: \u201CWell, he\u2019s wealthy; he must be good.\u201D But how did he get his wealth? If you are one who salutes Merrill Lynch, then, frankly, you have no idea how damaging it has been to Western society and to ordinary people\u2019s lives, to people who in the main have lost, in many cases, everything they ever had, because of this greed. That is the fact of the matter. He is a man whose time is well up, and an early exit now awaits him and his incompetent party, because, frankly, this country wants leadership, not someone who does this in this photo\u2014minces and simpers around the country. He will not miss a photo opportunity for anything. He goes to the opening of an envelope. But when it comes to the tough issues, he is never there. He is a man who has actually put on All Blacks gear and modelled it, but then he got confused as to who had just won the Rugby World Cup, so he ended up shaking hands with both the president and the captain at the same time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000374\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00223d49aeac-8adf-497b-9400-ab7bb077bb8d\u0022\u003EI say that their time is up, because they have proven in their fourth Budget that they have not got any ideas to be of benefit to their people, and the sooner they go\u2014and I believe that it will be long before 2014, when this term of 3 years is up\u2014the better for everyone concerned.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022 data-id=\u0022448cd2aac69e4d0fb0852641f6f962cd\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000375\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022448cd2aac69e4d0fb0852641f6f962cd\u0022\u003EHon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader\u2014M\u0101ori Party):\u003C/span\u003E T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. T\u016B atu au ki te k\u014Drero ki te Tahua P\u016Btea nei m\u014D te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori. Tuatahi, kua oti k\u0113 t\u0101 m\u0101tau m\u014Dhio ki te take he tahua p\u016Btea korekore ai i t\u0113nei w\u0101. N\u0101 reira, k\u0101re m\u0101tau e ngau tuar\u0101 ki te r\u016B whenua ki \u014Ctautahi, \u0101, ki te hekenga o te \u014Dhanga o te ao, me te whakapaunga o ng\u0101 p\u016Btea e ng\u0101 iwi o Aotearoa ki te hoko whare, me \u0113r\u0101 atu \u0101huatanga. N\u0101 reira, n\u0101 t\u0113n\u0101 kei te m\u014Dhio m\u0101tau he tahua p\u016Btea korekore t\u0113nei, n\u0101 reira, kei te kimi m\u0101tau i \u0113tahi hua m\u014D t\u014D t\u0101tau iwi.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000376\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EEngari tuatahi, hari koa m\u0101tau i whawhai kia pupuri tonu kia pupuri tonu ki te kotahi rau, ono tekau m\u0101 wh\u0101 miriona taara m\u014D te Wh\u0101nau Ora n\u0101 te mea, ko te Wh\u0101nau Ora he kaupapa matua, ehara m\u014D te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori anak\u0113, \u0113ngari m\u014D Aotearoa. N\u0101 reira, t\u0113n\u0101 te mea nui ki ahau i t\u0113nei w\u0101 ahakoa, he tahua p\u016Btea korekore kua mau tonu ki t\u0113n\u0101 p\u016Btea. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000377\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003ETe take i tae mai te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori ki te P\u0101remata, kia noho m\u0101tau i te t\u0113p\u016B, ahakoa ko wai te k\u0101wana. N\u0101 te aha? Kia riro mai \u0113tahi hua m\u014D t\u014D t\u0101tau iwi, me te manaaki, tiaki i te hunga i kiia nei, ko te hunga rawakore. N\u0101 reira, koin\u0101 t\u0101ku e k\u012B atu ki a koe, kei te noho tata m\u0101tau me te K\u0101wanatanga i t\u0113nei w\u0101 ki te whiwhi i \u0113nei taonga m\u014D t\u014D t\u0101tau iwi. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000378\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003E[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak to this Budget on behalf of the M\u0101ori Party. Firstly, we knew beforehand why this was going to be a zero Budget at this point in time. As a consequence we will not be doing any backbiting about the Christchurch earthquake, the global recession, or how the people of New Zealand spent money purchasing houses and other things. And because of that, we knew that this would be a zero Budget and we looked for ways that would create benefits for our people. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000379\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EBut, first of all, we were pleased that we fought to hang on to the $164 million for Wh\u0101nau Ora because it is a major initiative, not just for the M\u0101ori Party but for New Zealand. That is the most important thing for me at this moment, even though this is a zero Budget. We have retained that funding. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000380\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EAs to the reason why the M\u0101ori Party came to Parliament, it was so that we could sit at the table, regardless of who the Government was. Why? To enable our people to receive benefits and to enable those without to receive care and protection. So I say to you that we are working closely with the Government at this point in time to receive these precious essentials for our people.]\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000381\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003ESo it is with the knowledge of the state of the country\u2019s economy that we come to speak to this Budget, and to tell you that we are pleased that we have been able to make some headway, i.e., in getting some assets for M\u0101ori at this troubled time\u2014for example, our fight against rheumatic fever. It has taken a few years to double the amount of funding. Instead of $12 million we have got $24 million now going out, because M\u0101ori are 23 times more likely to get rheumatic fever, and Pacific Islanders are 50 times more likely, than other ethnic groups. The impacts of this disease are really serious and long term. Approximately 145 people die each year from that disease. Worse still, it is a disease of the Third World, of developing countries, so it should not even be here.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000382\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222aa0b524-c38d-45aa-bd5b-99c5927085f4\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e7334160579245f383be0fb140cd6a48\u0022\u003EClare Curran\u003C/span\u003E: Improve the housing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000383\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225d6113b7c4b94c82a8412f5beb3a1f4f\u0022\u003EHon Dr PITA SHARPLES\u003C/span\u003E: Housing is a very important thing, and that is why we have supported the social housing fund.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000384\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222aa0b524-c38d-45aa-bd5b-99c5927085f4\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d8fd1d7282f14ff98d4d871e78114755\u0022\u003EClare Curran\u003C/span\u003E: Not enough.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000385\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224a356e03cb2f440b836c88dd802d910a\u0022\u003EHon Dr PITA SHARPLES\u003C/span\u003E: True; it is not enough. It is a start, at least. We have turned towards that, and we are hoping that we will have a say, or our people will have a say, in the development of housing. But not only that, there is the Warm Up New Zealand programme. We have had a significant effect on the Warm Up New Zealand programme. I know that we have now reached 150,000 houses that have been warmed up, and we have added 20,000 of those houses to that programme, the M\u0101ori Party has, so we are pretty pleased that that has happened. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000386\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003ETwo nights ago I launched a cadetship programme whereby 50 trainees, and they are actually in work, have the desire to go on to pursue a career and a degree in the electricity supply industry. We had companies like Contact Energy, InfraTrain, Mighty River Power, Northpower, Transpower, Vector, and so on, who took on M\u0101ori trainees with a view to guiding them into the industry. That was the end result of 150 cadetships that we have launched. And today I announced another 250 M\u0101ori cadetships, for M\u0101ori to begin this training in various occupations. That will get 1,000 into those positions over 4 years. Hopefully, in a year\u2019s time we can match that with another $10 million, to get another 1,000. These are the kinds of things that the M\u0101ori Party has been working on. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000387\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EAs one who has spent a lot of time on rehabilitation programmes in prisons, I am really pleased that we have been able to find $65 million to go towards rehabilitation programmes, which include drug programmes, job training, education programmes, and actually getting people into work. It is not going to be an easy programme, because when you do things behind the wire there is a prison culture, which makes it very difficult. But at least it is a big change from the path that the Government has taken in recent times of the hard line on imprisonment. So that has got to be a good thing that has happened there, for us. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000388\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EI would like to talk about the tobacco measures. This work has been led by our party ever since we got into Parliament. We believe that we should have a drive to cease smoking in this country, on the grounds of what smoking contributes to ill health and the related diseases that it accentuates. We are proud to say over each of the next 4 years there is going to be an increase in tobacco prices of 10 percent. So I am telling smokers now to just get ready to pay more, and more, and more\u2014it is cumulative. We are also proud of the $20 million that the Government has put forward for a new innovation called Pathway to Smoke-Free in 2025. This is a good thing. It is interesting that an Otago University study showed that even smokers recognise that these moves to make tobacco sales tougher, including plain packaging, which the M\u0101ori Party supports, have got to be a good move for New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000389\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EThere will be $132 million for the disabilities programme. Tariana Turia is the Minister for Disability Issues. We all know that this will help with their way of life. It is quite a lot of money, but it is a need that has to be met. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000390\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EThere will be $7.6 million for Enviroschools. We have championed the funding of Enviroschools, Kura Taiao, right from their beginning. As far as I can tell, we are the only party that has done that until now, when the National Government has come in behind us and with us, as partners, to float this programme for another 4 years, and allow the programme to grow. What is good about Kura Taiao is that it teaches children respect for Papat\u016B\u0101nuku and Rangi, Sky Father, and it also teaches them to grow food, whakatupu kai, and to learn about the environment and preservation. It is an excellent programme. It is a very good one.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000391\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220c7c0ccdacc240b69d306d53648ff8a5\u0022\u003ECatherine Delahunty\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, it is. We started it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000392\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223116df56f0744e6a847fa422dd772e50\u0022\u003EHon Dr PITA SHARPLES\u003C/span\u003E: Well, I have been going around the schools now for 5 years, and this is my thing. So this is it, and we launched this programme out at a kura just last week. So these are good programmes that we have launched, despite it being a zero Budget and a hard time for us. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000393\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EIn education there are many benefits that have come through this Budget. Although it is reorganised money, nevertheless this is what is going out for M\u0101ori: $90 million to improve M\u0101ori-medium early childhood services; for k\u014Dhanga reo and te puna reo, another $8.5 million in resources to support that learning; $50 million in equity funding, especially with te reo and tikanga M\u0101ori; and $33 million to lift M\u0101ori achievement in mainstream schools. I might just talk about that, because we have instigated a programme called Reading Together, and we trialled it in two areas. It was so good in bringing mothers and parents into the school to help their children with reading that now, with this Government, we have put it into every\u2014and I mean every\u2014decile 1, 2, and 3 school in New Zealand. This has got to make a major change in the reading ability, and therefore the comprehension and learning growth, of our children in schools. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000394\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219767ece-60f1-4014-9855-74afaa34e699\u0022\u003EThere are other things, but I see you waving at me, Mr Speaker, so, thanks very much for the opportunity to talk on the Budget. Although, again, these are hard times and it is a zero Budget, there are benefits in there for people, recognising the situation that we are in. Kia ora.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022 data-id=\u002231df8de4028a49c1a940bfcdd933aa83\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000395\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002231df8de4028a49c1a940bfcdd933aa83\u0022\u003EHONE HARAWIRA (Leader\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Kia ora t\u0101tou katoa e te Whare. We have heard what National\u2019s Budget will be for the next 12 months. But before we look forward, I suggest we take a good look at where we are right now. We have got 160,000 unemployed, and another 107,000 who cannot get enough work. We have got 500,000 people earning less than $16 an hour. We have got 200,000 kids and their families living in poverty, right here in Aotearoa. Because of all that, we have also got 52,000 Kiwis leaving for Australia every year, because the wages are higher, there are heaps more jobs, and the first $18,000 is tax-free. M\u0101ori are leaving in their droves, because they are getting a chance to show what they can do away from a deeply racist society. I say to them all \u201CGo, with our blessings. Flourish and succeed, and then come back one day and turn this place on its head\u201D. So that is where we are right now. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000396\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EWhere is it that this Government is taking us over the next 12 months? What is the nature of the Budget it proposes to help rebuild our nation? Well, Bill English calls it a zero Budget, and for once I suspect a lot of people agree with him, because it is certainly a Budget that offers zero opportunity, zero growth, zero solutions, and zero hope for the thousands of Kiwis who are asking why they bother to stay here. Yes, there is a global financial crisis, but that does not mean we have to follow the failed austerity policies from the other side of the world. The fact is that we have been conned into thinking that a zero Budget is what we need to get back into the global game, to become a player again in the global economy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000397\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EBut just what is this zero Budget, and what does it mean for ordinary New Zealanders? Well, what it means is that if you want money for health, you are going to get zero; if you want money for education, you will get zero; if you want money for housing, you will get zero; if you want money for decent wages, you will get zero; and if you want money for old people, you will get zero. Of course, the M\u0101ori Party insists on being an equal coalition partner, so it got zero as well. There are zero dollars for k\u014Dhanga reo, zero dollars for kura kaupapa, zero dollars for w\u0101nanga, zero dollars for hauora M\u0101ori, and now the M\u0101ori Party can boast that it has also got zero dollars for marae development, M\u0101ori employment initiatives, M\u0101ori economic development, M\u0101tauranga M\u0101ori, for implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for cultural and intellectual property rights, for the right to te reo M\u0101ori, for M\u0101ori broadcasting, and for M\u0101ori land resource development. All the M\u0101ori Party got was a squeak for its flagship programme, Wh\u0101nau Ora. As for Te Puni K\u014Dkiri, the future is even worse, because not only will it lose money but also it will lose many of its programmes and whole bunch of its staff, as well. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000398\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EYou see, what this whole zero Budget beat-up is about is making poor people think that they have to give up something just like everyone else, when in fact they are the only ones giving something up. The rich are giving up bugger all. In fact, with the assistance of this National Government, rich people will still be able to play the financial markets and pay no tax; finance companies can still fail, knowing that National will bail them out; and company directors can steal hundreds of millions of dollars and keep their knighthoods, while poor people steal from a dairy and go to jail. Wealthy private contractors already control much of our health sector. Now they are lining up to take over our education system, run our prisons, and take over accident compensation, as well. Rich people here pay a lower tax rate than in France, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, and even the USA. The Government is proposing to let big business walk away from wage negotiations, while fining workers for daring to strike. Rich people will be the only ones who can afford to buy our State assets. And, as we have seen just over the past few days, filthy rich people with filthy little minds will still be able to give the unbackable ACT Party unbelievable amounts of money to do unspeakable things to M\u0101ori, while the Race Relations Commissioner huffs and puffs and does nothing about it. Somehow this whole zero Budget thing seems to zero in on only the poor and the dispossessed. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000399\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003ESo what does Mana think we should be doing? Simple. Ignore the demands to cripple the poor, to keep the rich afloat\u2014that was the solution they tried in Europe, and the people over there are finally waking up to the fact that it ain\u2019t working. Then redistribute the wealth to ensure that all New Zealanders can become positive contributors to the nation\u2019s economy. Yesterday Bill English called on Mana to support offshore oil drilling if we really support job creation. Mana\u2019s response is that we will not be supporting offshore oil drilling, because it is not about job creation; it is about wealth creation for overseas businesses that this Government licenses to rape our seas, leave the mess, and sail away with 94 percent of the profits. Mana\u2019s response is to say we should tax the rich and free the poor, reverse National\u2019s $2 billion of tax cuts to wealthy New Zealanders, lift the tax rate for the super-rich from 33 percent to 45 percent, establish a proper capital gains tax under which all income regardless of where it comes from is taxed at the personal tax rate, replace GST with a financial transaction tax which will put money straight into the hands of the poor, reduce speculation on the Kiwi dollar, increase our export earnings, commit at least 20 percent of tobacco taxes to smoking cessation programmes, make the first $27,000 a person earns tax-free so that everyone gets a decent start in life, and here is a biggie: spend whatever it takes to eliminate acute rheumatic fever. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000400\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EAt the moment 98 percent of those who get this disease of the super-poor are M\u0101ori and Pacific Island children. If it were P\u0101keh\u0101 kids suffering, I guarantee it would be on the front pages of the nation\u2019s papers today, the first item on the news tonight, a national scandal tomorrow, and by next week legislation would be passed to eliminate the problem. A measly $3 million for throat swabs just because the kids are brown is a bloody disgrace, and is an indictment on the racism that underpins the way in which health funds are spent in this country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000401\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EWe should help new mums get a start in life by offering them assistance with newborns instead of contraception, and helping them with money for their kids to go to school. It is not hard; it is what they do in Australia. We should drop the lie about bigger classes being good for a child\u2019s education. The research does not support it, teachers do not buy it, parents do not agree with it, and I bet no Government Minister is going to let their kids get put into bigger classes. If you are not going to have it for your kids, do not impose it on anyone else\u2019s. We should make it easier for kids to go to university, by increasing access to student allowances, and extend student allowances to cover postgraduate study. We should lift the minimum wage from $13.50 an hour to $20 an hour. We should launch a programme to build 20,000 State houses over the next 2 years. This would instantly reduce unemployment and create apprenticeships in building, plumbing, and electrical work, and in painting and cabinetmaking. It would be a huge social and economic investment in the future of our nation. It would create jobs, begin to lower our startling levels of homelessness, and reduce our problems with the poor, and it can all be paid for by people renting their houses. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000402\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EWe should cancel prescription charge increases, because they hurt poor people and old people. Here is an email I got from a constituent just yesterday. It reads like this: \u201CKia ora r\u0101. My mum is 80 this year, worked two jobs most of her working life to feed us when we were kids, and still feeds her mokopuna from her garden. She turned her hot-water cylinder off 3 years ago when her partner died, to keep the power bill down. My mokopuna went to stay with her one night and said \u2018Aw, I had to have a cold bucket-bath at Nan\u2019s.\u2019 My mum and her peers are really stressed about the $2 hike in prescriptions. Like most elderly, she takes up to 10 pills a day.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000403\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00227883c85e-a5bb-4a12-9962-80df55af0ecd\u0022\u003EThese are common-sense proposals, which a generation ago would have been mainstream policies to help build a decent New Zealand. We cannot go back to the past, but we can bring forward the values of previous generations to turn our future round. Tax the rich and free the poor. It might sound like a radical suggestion in this House, but it is one that is gathering strength on the streets of this country. Kia ora t\u0101tou katoa.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022 data-id=\u0022f2dd544e713b4fe3b3873128504715ec\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000404\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022f2dd544e713b4fe3b3873128504715ec\u0022\u003EHon JOHN BANKS (Leader\u2014ACT):\u003C/span\u003E Let us start with one indisputable fact and one ACT Party proposition. The indisputable fact is that 49.9 percent of every dollar spent in New Zealand was spent by the Government or an agency of the Government\u201450c in every dollar. Now for the proposition: ACT believes that taxpayers can spend their money better than any politician or collective group of politicians in this Parliament. We believe that hard-working New Zealanders can spend their money better than anyone in this Parliament. There are many good things in this Budget. Compared with the Budgets Labour gave us, particularly for the last 4 years of the Helen Clark Government, this Budget is a very sound and sensible document. Here is another indisputable fact: under Labour, core Crown expenditure increased from $35 billion to $64 billion from 2000 to 2009. That is a $29 billion increase over 9 years. The total expenditure under this ACT Party - supported Government has risen only $8 billion in four Budgets. Beneath that headline figure are many good stories that this Government is doing with less. This Government clearly understands that the proposition from the other side of the House today that you can borrow more, spend more, and tax more to get us out of our small corner of the world in the global recession is mistaken.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000405\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EThe welfare reforms for which the ACT Party has long campaigned are a welcome change. After 20 years of no inflation adjustment, raising the price of prescriptions by $2 is just common sense. It frees up taxpayers\u2019 money and improves incentives to use medicines well. The parliamentary Opposition would say let us go to the Crown account and borrow more money each week to fund everything that everyone thinks they need. We in the ACT Party are hopeful that this Budget heralds the beginning of a new era in education, an era in which we accept that teachers can make a difference and we pay for them to make a difference. We believe that teachers can make a difference, and we want to pay teachers to make a difference.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000406\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EThe announcement that we will fine-tune the Public Finance Act is very good news\u2014fine-tuning of the Public Finance Act. New Zealand has a growing tradition of better fiscal performance through better financial reporting and that goes back to the 1990 Government, when I sat over there in the 1990 Government. This Budget makes major beneficial additions to those traditions. [Interruption] I want the Opposition to listen to this because it is critical stuff. Treasury produces a triennial 40-year forecast of New Zealand\u2019s finances. The first one in 2006 was called New Zealand\u2019s Long-term Fiscal Position. In 2006, Treasury predicted that if we carried on business as usual\u2014if we carried on with a Helen Clark Government and a Michael Cullen financial ministry\u2014then by 2050 we would end up with Government debt at 106 percent of GDP. That is exactly where Greece was before the collapse.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000407\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EThe next report in 2009 makes more interesting reading. It is called Challenges and Choices: New Zealand\u2019s Long-term Fiscal Statement. That report said that under spending patterns present in 2008 and 2009, we would have public debt of at least 223 percent of GDP by 2050\u2014223 percent. Under this Budget, and this National Government supported by ACT and my other friends here in this coalition, we will well and truly have all of that structural debt repaid by then. We will not have public debt at 223 percent of GDP by 2050. This is the beginning of saving our great-grandchildren yet to be born from having to foot the bill of the interest costs of the massive debt that the Labour Party and its friends over there would ramp up on their backs.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000408\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EThe message is clear: if we return to the spending patterns of the previous decade of Labour Governments, then, as Jane Clifton put it, \u201CPIGS-R-US\u201D. That is what Treasury would be calling future forecasts if the parliamentary Opposition was on this side of the House today. Can you imagine increases in taxes, capital gains taxes, everything-that-moves taxes, more borrowing, more spending, and more handing out? We would not be the Government spending 50c in every dollar; it would go to 55c, 60c, 70c. The Russians have plenty of evidence that this has never worked.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000409\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EThe ACT Party believes that we can do better. Labour introduced $15 billion of completely new spending in its first four Budgets\u2014$15 billion. As we were going into a global recession, it went out and spent more and more, borrowed more and more, and taxed more. The ACT Party has supported the coalition Government\u2019s introduction of only $750 million in its first four Budgets. This Government has spent only an additional $750 million in its first four Budgets. We need to reduce expenditure because every dollar the Government spends is a dollar taken out of the pockets of a hard-working New Zealander. That is a dollar that could have gone towards a weekly grocery bill. It is a dollar that could go towards a kid\u2019s school shoes. It is a dollar that could have been invested in starting up a business. It is a dollar that could have gone into savings for retirement. But these people want to take all those dollars, and they want it distributed. That is called middle-class welfare, and it does not work, and it is unfair.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000410\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003ELast year the Government\u2019s financial statements recorded that 49.9 percent of the New Zealand economy was the Government. The ACT Party says that is wrong. The ACT Party says we have to reduce the size of Government, reduce the size of the State, get off the backs of the workers, and stay out of the lives of business people, who create wealth and jobs, and make sure that we give them a fair go. These people opposite believe they know best, and the bottom line is that they believe that they can spend your money much better than you can spend your money. So we say, today in this Parliament in this first Budget debate after 12 years\u2019 interregnum, roll back the excesses of Working for Families. Roll back the election bribe given to our most able earners in the form of student loan interest write-offs. Roll back the pension age to 67, as so many of our trading partners have done, and the Retirement Commissioner believes we should do\u2014that would save $1.6 billion a year. Roll back free doctors\u2019 visits for millionaires and the early childhood education funding, which was almost entirely captured by families already using early childhood education.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000411\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EWe aspire on this side of the House to a New Zealand where people who work, save, take risks, raise their families, are good citizens, and invest are rewarded. That is what we aspire to. We aspire to hard work, savings, risk taking, investment, and hard work. Less Government spending means more private sector growth and more money left in New Zealanders\u2019 pockets to reward their hard work. We say to the people opposite to get off the backs of the taxpayers and let them spend their money as they see fit, because they have done the hard graft to earn it. It would be a New Zealand where the tax wedge separating effort from reward would be thinner. That tax wedge from reward and effort must be thinner, and New Zealanders\u2019 pay packets must get thicker.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000412\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b53f8451-a5f8-4e92-851f-9ca381f19343\u0022\u003EI finish as I began: hard-working New Zealanders can spend their money much better than the Labour Party has ever spent their money. And remember this: any Government big enough to give you everything you want is a Government big enough to take from you everything you have. The ACT Party supports this Budget and we will keep supporting Budgets, and sensible Budgets, for the benefits of hard-working New Zealanders. This is a good start in difficult circumstances. I am glad I am on this side of the House, and those people opposite are not on this side of the House. As I have said before, imagine those ferocious and very, very greedy rabbits inside the lettuce patch of the Treasury finances on this day as we go forward. There would be more borrowing, there would be more spending, there would be more taxing, there would be no hope. They would be on the backs of the taxpayers, and New Zealanders today are glad that this Government is in charge of the finances under these difficult circumstances\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000413\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e53fbd51b0374e9c88517550571c23f0\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but his time has expired.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u00226c0140aa4c754623b54c363db7b912bc\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000414\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226c0140aa4c754623b54c363db7b912bc\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Leader\u2014United Future):\u003C/span\u003E I want to begin this afternoon with two quotations that are relevant to the context of this year\u2019s Budget. The first is from the OECD yesterday, and it says, in respect of New Zealand: \u201CThe government needs to adhere to its fiscal consolidation plans, given the twin vulnerabilities of rapidly rising public debt and high external debt. Delaying monetary tightening is appropriate in light of the fiscal contraction and risks to global growth, though as reconstruction accelerates, capacity pressures will bear close watching. As the government shrinks, reinvigorated structural policies are needed to channel resources into productive economic uses.\u201D That was the OECD yesterday. The second quote is a little longer in its history\u2014it is from President Kennedy in 1961\u2014but it is still relevant in the context of this Budget. He said: \u201CWe sometimes chafe at the burden of our obligations, the complexity of our decisions, the agony of our choices. But there is no comfort or security for us in evasion, no solution in abdication, no relief in irresponsibility. \u2026 For it is the fate of this generation \u2026 to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did not make.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000415\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EIn terms of New Zealand\u2019s place in the world and the international conditions that have very much shaped the context of this Budget, it was a struggle that we did not start, and it was certainly a world that we did not make. But there is one other important point in the OECD report that goes to the heart of some of the issues in this year\u2019s Budget. It noted that apart from falling commodity prices and the ongoing impact of the Christchurch earthquakes, one of the impediments to growth in New Zealand at present has been household deleveraging. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000416\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhen you look at the Budget tables and you look at the experience over the last couple of years, one can see that since the Budget 2010 tax initiatives, there has been a significant increase in household saving rates\u2014probably far greater than was ever envisaged at the time\u2014and that is likely to continue to strengthen with the increase in the KiwiSaver contribution rate from April of next year. So, on the one hand, New Zealanders are relieving themselves of debt; on the other, because of that, they are not spending in consumption, which is slowing our rate of growth. I must say that one of the things that did disappoint me in the Budget was the deferral of the auto-enrolment exercise for KiwiSaver. I understand the reasons why, but I actually believe that it is time to move to make KiwiSaver a compulsory savings scheme, and then some of the costs associated with an auto-enrolment scheme could be got over, because you actually remove those incentives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000417\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI think, when one looks at the Budget and the context of it, and at the commentators who have spoken about it and compared New Zealand\u2019s situation with the rest of the world, the one thing you can say with absolute certainty is that the claim by the Leader of the Opposition that a zero Budget is a no-growth Budget would be one of the greatest fallacies of all time. What this Budget does, very cleverly in my view, is reprioritise just under $5 billion of spending into a much higher-quality level of spending by seeking better performance, rather than just simply throwing more money at problems. In so doing, it lays out a couple of challenges: one to the Government sector to continually up its game in terms of the quality of service and the quality of performance for the service it delivers, and the second challenge\u2014and the bigger challenge\u2014is to the productive sector of this economy to start to take those lessons on board now and to make a positive contribution to New Zealand\u2019s growth moving forward. So, in other words, contrary to Mr Shearer\u2019s assertion that the only way you can get growth in the economy is for the Government to grow, what this Budget is saying is that the Government is setting its own house in order so that the circumstances are there for the productive sector of the economy to take the lead and for it to grow, for it to create the jobs, for it to create the revenue, for it to create the opportunities for the people of our country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000418\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EAgain, you have got to see this in an international context. New Zealand does have an issue with debt; the OECD acknowledged that. But high debt to GDP ratios are far stronger in Europe, in Britain, even in Japan, for instance, and in many other countries. They have higher rates than New Zealand. We are better positioned. We might not like the position we are in. We might well say that we can do better, but we are better positioned than many of those countries, and many of those countries now face much harsher choices as a consequence of their position. For instance, we are not talking here, thankfully, about cuts in Public Service salaries in the way that the Greeks or the Irish have been speaking, or even about what the new socialist Messiah, M. Hollande, has spoken of in France. In fact, cutting senior Public Service salaries was one of his first acts. That is not on New Zealand\u2019s agenda, because we do not need to do that. Nor do we need to follow the rest of Europe in this headlong rush to a crazy, complicated, unworkable financial transactions tax, or even go down the path that some here advocate of a capital gains tax. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000419\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhat we are doing here, through this Budget and through the careful and prudent reprioritisation that is occurring, is setting the scene for future growth. I think that marks a considerable difference from many of the 28 previous Budgets I have seen delivered in this House. All of them have had an understandable\u2014for different reasons, at the time\u2014preoccupation with the short term: the next electoral cycle, or the next immediate crisis. This Budget is brave enough to stand aside from that, and say that over a long track of 4 to 5 years\u2014very long in our parliamentary terms\u2014the Government is making some decisions about the future shape and structure of the New Zealand economy that will, in turn, inform the decisions that many of the key players within that economy will make. And it is starting to send some signals that, I think, are long overdue and welcome. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000420\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EFor years successive Governments\u2014particularly, actually, Governments of the left\u2014in New Zealand have talked about the need for partnerships. They have called them strategic alliances or accords\u2014all those sorts of things. And, in fact, what this Budget does is actually start that process, because it recognises that the Government can no longer do everything. You see, the challenge used to be that people talked about partnerships, but partnerships were always led and dominated by the Government. What this Budget is really saying is the Government cannot have all the answers, but it can know where and who the most productive or most effective groups in the economy to deliver certain needs are. So what you are starting to see in terms of the Government\u2019s relationship with business, in terms of what is going on in the health and education sectors, is a much greater focus on working with the key groups to get the best outcome for the dollars that are invested. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000421\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI will give you one very specific example. I am currently in the midst of a review of our mental health strategies. One thing that has become very obvious during that review is that the previous pattern has been that essentially mental health issues and mental health services are Government-delivered. We have a vibrant non-governmental organisation sector\u2014highly skilled, highly capable\u2014that actually wants to get involved, and there is no reason why it cannot get involved in doing its job best to deliver effective services for that particular group of people. That is but one example. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000422\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhat we are starting to see is that the challenges that the Governments of the future will face are not going to be about that traditional distribution issue; they are going to be about the increasing demands of technology and the expectations that the public have in respect of that. Even silencing equipment might not be a bad advance in that respect. In other words, it is about the point of entry that people have into the availability of public sector services. That is why things like the Inland Revenue Department\u2019s technology system for the future are so important and the investment in that is going to be so critical. It is why we talk about the need to protect this little ship in a very turbulent international economy. We are a country that, because of our history, relies on our ability to trade\u2014on that big picture. But we are the one trading nation that is at the far end of the world; we are the developed country furthest away from any of our major trading partners. So we have got to be a global citizen. We cannot pretend that the world around us does not exist. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000423\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EThen, finally, because it is tied up with all of this, we have got to commit to the rebuilding of Christchurch after not one but four major earthquakes in a 13-month period. I think people forget that, and think that this was just some one-off event that had minimal impact. It has had a huge impact on that city and province, and a significant impact on New Zealand, and because of its unusual, unique nature, it continues to have an impact today. One simply cannot pretend that that $20 billion impact can be ignored or that it will go away. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000424\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhat this Budget is about is giving New Zealanders the opportunity and taking the chance to focus on our future and to build constructively for the needs we have as a country moving forward, not just dealing with today\u2019s issues but taking a very positive long-term focus.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022 data-id=\u0022a8fff79237b3497f9b9269771e9be718\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000425\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a8fff79237b3497f9b9269771e9be718\u0022\u003EHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the debate be now adjourned. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u002219bda513a61048e3b38e6697ddc2fec4\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EMotion agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000426\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022eeab7acaba0a45a99e764a30298f6f6e\u0022\u003EUrgency\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000428\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u00221e583639de444d2598180907878259f9\u0022\u003EUrgency\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022 data-id=\u0022360502a72f9943379fb399540a675d59\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000427\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022360502a72f9943379fb399540a675d59\u0022\u003EHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That urgency be accorded the introduction and passing of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, and any bills into which they may be divided, and the introduction and first reading of the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and its referral to a select committee. These bills give life to the announcements in today\u2019s Budget speech around livestock valuations, reforming outdated tax credits, ending the voluntary payments bonus for student loans, altering the annual adjustment for aged-care asset thresholds, and increasing the excise rate on tobacco products in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. These bills are designed to make the tax, student loans, and aged-care asset-testing systems fairer and fiscally sustainable, and to improve the health of New Zealanders. Urgency is desirable, as these changes have already been announced, and it is preferable to introduce these changes and provide certainty for taxpayers and citizens as soon as possible. The Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill will progress through its second and third readings and the Committee of the whole House stage under the usual House sitting procedures, as the first excise increase is proposed for 1 January 2013. I think those statements set out the necessary particularity to support the motion.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022ef042e13d0a440608a4d9b59985efd46\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That urgency be accorded.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EMotion agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000429\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022a9469039136e4367a1d600eec1d26849\u0022\u003ETaxation (Budget Measures) Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000430\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00222db716af66a14b44bc9a24c01ba8bb6b\u0022\u003EFirst Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u002218dc8d3d94064400962191def4881453\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000431\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002218dc8d3d94064400962191def4881453\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) \u003C/span\u003Eon behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill be now read a first time. The year 2012 is going to hold challenges, with economic uncertainty ahead, and the Budget announced this afternoon is one, therefore, aimed at returning the New Zealand economy to surplus. A key to that is getting the Government\u2019s finances in order, getting debt under control, and reducing our overreliance on foreign debt. To continue to provide effective public services and functions, it is important that Government spending continues to be financed through efficient taxes that are as fair and efficient as possible. It is also important that the Government makes prudent choices about where and how it spends taxpayers\u2019 funds. The measures contained in this bill, therefore, continue the Government\u2019s focus on improving fairness in the tax system by ensuring that the tax burden is shared fairly, and on removing unjustifiable spending. This bill will repeal the tax credits for income under $9,880 and the tax credit for childcare and housekeeper expenditure. It will replace the tax credit for the active income of children with a limited tax exemption. It will legislate a change made in March this year to the livestock valuation election rules, and will repeal the student loan voluntary repayment bonus. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000432\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EIn Budget 2011 the Government announced its intention to review the rules for livestock valuation elections and the tax treatment of assets that are used for both business and private use. With regard to livestock valuations, the previous rules were too loose, and allowed some farmers switching between the two main livestock valuation methods to receive an unfair tax advantage over those farmers who applied the rules as they were intended. In March the Government moved to disallow elections to exit from the herd scheme except in narrow circumstances, effective to elections made from 18 August 2011. This bill will put that change into law, with the supporting detail to be included in legislation later this year. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000433\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EThis bill will also abolish three outdated tax credits that are expensive and, frankly, unjustifiable. These are the credit for income under $9,880, the tax credit for childcare and housekeeper expenditure, and the tax credit for the active income of children. The tax credit for the active income of children is being replaced with a limited tax exemption. That credit will ensure that children will not need to file a tax return if they have small amounts of income that are not taxed at source\u2014for example, from mowing their neighbour\u2019s lawn. Transitional rules have been developed for people who are claiming one of these tax credits in the current year through the PAYE system. The transitional rules will provide employers with time to update their payroll systems. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000434\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI described the tax credits as outdated; let me illustrate what I mean. When the tax credit for income under $9,880 was introduced it was aimed at people on a full-time salary of less than $10,000 per annum. Times and salaries have moved on significantly from that time, and the tax credit no longer applies to the group it was originally established to support. Similarly, the child tax credit was a transitional measure introduced by Sir Robert Muldoon in 1978, in an era when most employers did not deduct tax at source. Now they do, so that credit has similarly become outdated. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000435\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI mention also in this context the housekeeper tax credit, which dates from 1933, in a time of completely different social practices to those that prevail today. I also mentioned earlier the need to focus on prudent spending, and the Budget this afternoon contained measures that are designed to improve the quality of the Government\u2019s investment in the student loan scheme. This bill will repeal the voluntary repayment bonus. The Government continues to focus on encouraging student loan borrowers to pay their loans back. However, the repayment bonus does not seem to be improving the value of the scheme, and it has failed to achieve the policy objective of encouraging repayment from borrowers who were slow to repay in the first instance. Instead it appears that what has been happening has been that the people claiming the bonus are borrowers already repaying their loans anyway. More alarmingly, there is evidence that the bonus was actually encouraging some students to borrow when they did not need to. In 2011 alone, some 2,611 borrowers repaid their loans in the same year that they borrowed them, receiving $1.8 million in bonuses from approximately $13 million of annual bonus payments. This has resulted in a cost to the Government, one which is clearly unnecessary. The $44.6 million being released by repealing the bonus will be able to be better used on other priorities. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000436\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003ELike the tax credits I have mentioned, the bonus scheme has also been overtaken by events, and the Government has since introduced a number of initiatives to increase student loan repayments. Overall, the measures that I have outlined so far will make the tax system fairer; they will also raise additional revenue. These measures and this bill are a measured and judicious response to the difficult challenges facing the country today. It is a prudent set of responses enabling us to move forward, and I commend the bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022 data-id=\u00228f9fb8a67721401cbbc1090642d649c6\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000437\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228f9fb8a67721401cbbc1090642d649c6\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E This Budget has already been termed by some of the commentators as a drab Budget without any really pro-growth agenda. This Budget legislation, the first piece of Budget legislation that the Government is passing under urgency, is illustrative of how little of substance there is in this Budget. The Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill runs to nine pages. Although it is dropped on us under urgency without any forewarning, in the 5 minutes that I have had to study it, it is abundantly clear it is not a substantial piece of legislation that is going to affect the future growth prospects of our country, because it does not deal with the difficult issues. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000438\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThere are three parts to this legislation. The first part deals with, as the Minister has said, removing some tax credits. I think we have already heard the phrase that this Budget picks the pockets of paper deliverers. It picks the pockets\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000439\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002231ec57b2fe1a4727a81b6a9d24bd5322\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000440\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227fbaebd1f78743c4b2c4d1913dd83c41\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: I think it was Trevor Mallard who said that first. It was a very good characterisation of this Budget\u2014picking the pockets of paper girls and paper boys up and down the country, and ignoring the big issues that this country faces. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000441\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003ENow why do I criticise the fact that the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill does not have more substantial measures in it? Well, the reality is that the Government\u2019s own forecasts show that under current settings it has had to downgrade its growth forecast. Not only have we already had the lowest growth under any Government in the last 50 years for the period that this Government has been in office so far but also for this coming year it has downgraded the growth forecast from 4 percent to 3 percent, and for the following year it has downgraded it even more, to 2.6 percent. We have got lower growth than was previously projected. We have got lower employment growth than was previously projected, which has gone down from 170,000 new jobs to 154,000 new jobs over a 4-year period. So the growth in our economy is not as good as was previously predicted. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000442\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EIn addition to that, we have got rising net international indebtedness, and the sorts of measures that are needed to address that are a lot more substantial than those that are in this taxation bill. The Government\u2019s own Budget figures show that the current account balance gets worse every year from here. So under the current tax settings in this economy, our current account deficit goes from negative 3.6 percent of GDP this year to negative 6.7 percent of GDP in 2016, and it is negative every year in between. The current account deficit gets worse every year. What does that mean? That means that every year New Zealand has to sell more assets and borrow more money from overseas to bridge the gap. Even after the Government limps back into surplus in the Government\u2019s books, it will not have dealt with the structural imbalances in our economy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000443\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EWhat does that mean in terms of New Zealand\u2019s net investment liabilities in the world? What we owe to the rest of the world grows and our net investment position goes backwards, so that by 2016 New Zealand\u2019s net international indebtedness, our net international liabilities, increase to 80 percent of GDP\u201480.1 percent. That totals an astounding $205 billion\u2014$205 billion\u2014of net international liabilities by then, which is up from where it is currently, this year, at $134 billion. That is just about all private debt; it is not Government debt. It is because we do not earn enough from our exports to pay for the cost of our imports and our interest. And what does this Budget show? It shows that getting worse, not better. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000444\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EIn terms of the pretty miserable GDP growth that we have got in this Budget, just about all of it comes from residential investment. The great majority of it comes from residential investment, rather than from investment in our export economy and growth in exports. In fact, our growth in exports is miserable. We heard the Prime Minister today reading a speech that had been prepared some days ago, saying that exports were up on the very day that Statistics New Zealand said that exports are down by about $700 million compared with last year. No wonder this bill from the Government is so narrow in its focus. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000445\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThere are some measures in it that we agree with. In fact, I was one of the ones, with Stuart Nash, who called for overhauling the rort that we had in the agricultural system, whereby you could change from revenue account to capital account for your capital livestock. What farmers could do was\u2014if dairy prices were going up and they had 1,000 cows, and those 1,000 cows were going to increase in value by $200 each, that would be a $200,000 increase in their assets. If it looked like the cows were going up in value, they could elect early enough to put it on capital account, and they would pay no tax on that increase in value. But if it was going the other way, and dairy prices were going down, there could be a $200,000 decrease in the value of their livestock. They could put it on revenue account, claim a tax deduction, and reduce their taxable income. That was a real rort. We called for its overhaul. We are glad to see that is being fixed up. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000446\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EWe also agree with changes to abolish the 10 percent bonus on early student loan repayments. We opposed that when it was brought in, because we knew it would not work. This is the Government reversing one of its own measures from one of its recent Budgets. The measure was so silly that 3 years or 2 years later the Government is having to repeal it, because it did not work. The Government created a 10 percent bonus for early repayments, and the only thing it found was that it was not getting any extra repayments. So it gave away the 10 percent voluntary repayment bonus for no increase in overall voluntary repayments. It is that sort of mismanagement of the economy that means that this Government is not growing the economy in the way it should. [Interruption] That is right. If we had performance pay in these ministries and on the part of the Government, then there would be a fair number of its Ministers who would be having a drop in salary. They would be earning less than backbenchers in Labour, because they are not as good as we are on this side. They will not do that for themselves, even though they are enforcing it upon the teaching profession. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000447\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThis Budget is a \u201Cno-growth in exports\u201D Budget. The export profile going forward is flat. As a consequence, the current account deficit goes up and the New Zealand deficit goes up. Debt goes up, and we have to sell more assets as well as borrow more money to meet that gap. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000448\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThe fiddling around with the tax credits that were previously available to some low-income people is necessary, partly because the Government\u2019s income tax cuts in prior Budgets spent $2.5 billion per annum in respect of income tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners. I think that 40 percent\u2014was it, Mr Cunliffe\u2014of the income tax cuts in that Budget went to the top 10 percent, and, as a consequence of the pressure that that has put on the Government\u2019s finances, it is now having to take away the small amount of tax break that a person doing a paper round used to get. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000449\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThis Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill will do nothing to stop the flow of people to Australia. Indeed, the Budget documents themselves show that New Zealand\u2019s changes in population and labour force assume that a large number of people will continue to head to Australia for the next 2 or 3 years. They assume that we are going to be losing a large number of people. As David Shearer said today, it was somewhat ironic to have the Prime Minister, before he was elected, saying that if he was elected he was going to stop the equivalent of a Westpac Stadium crowd going to Australia every year. And now, of course, he would have to make that same speech and substitute Eden Park with some extra seats, because that is the number of people who are leaving. More than 1,000 a week are going to\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000450\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c0074c22c313448eb6107d67d284d77c\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: The stands\u2014the temporary stands.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000451\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229a17fb340ea7412896accff17b25383c\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: What is that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000452\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221d350b51afd94c72841238b449cbaee7\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: You\u2019d have to bring back the temporary stands.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000453\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b039664d2aff4b978be124179c5fcd6b\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: Bring back the temporary stands\u2014yeah, that is right. The ones that they had up at the Rugby World Cup would have to be rolled out so that the stadium in Auckland could fit in enough people to represent the number of people who are going to Australia in a year\u2014now more than 1,000 people a week. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000454\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThis Budget has lower growth forecasts, lower employment growth forecasts, higher external debt rising to over $200 billion, and a $70 billion increase in external liabilities\u2014net international liabilities\u2014over the next 5 years. This is a very, very narrow bill, which does not do anything to cure the fundamental problems in the New Zealand economy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022 data-id=\u0022a2aac4b3bb2044de930e3baaeeabd79a\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000455\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a2aac4b3bb2044de930e3baaeeabd79a\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National\u2014Maungakiekie):\u003C/span\u003E It is my honour and pleasure to stand and talk about this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. Today has been a historic day. It has been a historic day because we have seen clearly in this House the difference between true leadership, in John Key, the Prime Minister, and a make-believe pretender, in David Shearer. When the two leaders spoke today we saw the reactions from the respective benches. The reactions were of positivity, clapping, and handshakes from the National benches. We looked across at the Labour benches and we saw a lot of planning and backstabbing, because we do not know who the leader is today.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000456\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E But it was about John Key\u2019s leadership in managing the finances. This is a responsible Budget. It is a Budget that will put New Zealand back on the track to recovery. It is a Budget that will get us to surplus by 2014-15. It is also a Budget that smoothes out the rough edges of the recession, protecting the vulnerable by investing funds in both health and education, as well as in science spending. It is also about creating jobs, because the only way we will get out of the economic mess that we inherited from Labour is by creating jobs. There have been in the last 2 years 60,000 net new jobs, and we estimate that in the next 4 years 154,000 will be created.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000457\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EI would like to also acknowledge the work of the Hon Bill English. Bill English has shown a plan in his fourth Budget. In his first Budget he spoke about the road to recovery. He spoke about the mess that we inherited from Labour and what we would do about it. In his second Budget he talked about building recovery. He talked about the tax switch, which was fairer to all New Zealanders, put more money into New Zealanders back pockets, and put a lot more trust and confidence into New Zealanders. Last year the Budget, despite it being an election year, was built on building our future, and it was a responsible, balanced Budget. But this year we talk about investing in our future. And what does investing in our future look like? Well, it looks like increasing spending on science and innovation, because we, the National Government, are about building a more productive and competitive economy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000458\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EThe Prime Minister also talked about the Future Investment Fund and how those proceeds will go towards modernising schools and building roads of national significance\u2014which I know that the Hon Gerry Brownlee will be happy about. It will also be about hospital redevelopments. The investment of $4.42 billion in new spending is focused on front-line public services. So we know that health and education will get more spending. We know that law and order is part of National\u2019s focus in terms of getting the crime statistics down. I also know intimately, as chairman of the Social Services Committee, the welfare reforms that we are putting in place. And we cannot forget about rebuilding Christchurch. Christchurch may have the best rugby team in New Zealand, but it also requires assistance from the Government and from all New Zealanders.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000459\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EWhat does the increase in the science and innovation fund look like? Well, it is $1.3 billion a year\u2014[Interruption] That is right, Simon O\u2019Connor, the member for T\u0101maki; it is $1.3 billion every year right through to 2015-16. I acknowledge Minister Joyce for creating a superministry that will be the engine room and the catalyst for providing the framework and conditions for us to get out of our economic predicament. It is also about $166 million that will be put towards developing a new Advanced Technology Institute. But it is also about $100 million extra to increase the Performance-based Research Fund. I look at members across the aisle there. They do not believe in performance. They do not believe in performance in schools. They do not believe in performance in public services. They just do not care, because their idea of growth in this country is to tax more, to borrow more, to spend more, and to hope a lot more.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000460\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EThe Future Investment Fund is about ultra-fast broadband. We heard from the Hon Bill English that it is about planning for spending on 21st century schools. I know that this is exciting in my electorate of Maungakiekie\u2014from Point England to Onehunga. Kids are thirsting for knowledge, they are thirsting for a breakthrough in technology, and they certainly will welcome the investment that we are going to put into broadband and into our schools.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000461\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EWe have also set some targets. We are the only Government of recent note to set targets: 85 percent of 18-year-olds to have National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 or equivalent by the year 2017. That is up from the current rate of 68 percent. Some would call it ambitious, but we would call it aspirational, because we are a Government that believes in aspiration, hope, and expectations. It will help M\u0101ori and Pacific audiences, because it is about lifting expectations, lifting achievement, and lifting the quality of teaching in our schools.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000462\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EWe will also be about reducing prisoner reoffending by 25 percent by the year 2017. That is right\u201425 percent. Recently I visited P\u0101remoremo jail to check on the programmes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000463\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002221f532014e584e2f8f4f269a723d1844\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: And they let the member go?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000464\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002246c07b71ec4b4ab48d787dea5ea73d25\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA\u003C/span\u003E: The member for Hutt South might actually get to know P\u0101remoremo very well, given the court case currently facing him. He could get to know the boys at Parry very, very well\u2014thank you very much, Mr Mallard.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000465\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EI also want to acknowledge Minister Turia. She has put $6 million into a Pacific Innovation Fund. That will help with services across the various portfolios, whether it be education, health, or justice.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000466\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EThis Budget, as I said at the beginning, builds on the Budgets of 2009, 2010, and 2011. This is a Government with a plan for growth. This is a Government with a plan for employment and opportunities. And this is a Government that is responsibly looking after our finances. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022 data-id=\u00228f69e3dcc2734c419c977150d122505d\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000467\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228f69e3dcc2734c419c977150d122505d\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour\u2014Hutt South):\u003C/span\u003E This is an interesting debate on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. I think we have just had a leader\u2014or someone who aspires to be the leader of a party\u2014make a speech pretending that he was a leader speaking on the Appropriation Bill, which was the previous legislation, rather than on the bill that we are currently debating. The member has been here for 4 years now, and I would have thought that at some stage he would know that the leaders speak on the Budget and then we deal with other legislation. He totally missed\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000468\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022df17f97934bd4ff48ba2acf3599ac6e2\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s called the Budget measures bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000469\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228b9cc0a2984548ff8bc7697345721ceb\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: It might relate to Budget measures, but there is enough\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000470\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223294ed66940148e5afacbe29b591c966\u0022\u003EPeseta Sam Lotu-Iiga\u003C/span\u003E: I\u2019ll take a call. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000471\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ad7f428ac2cf46e8a9f9baf77afd8544\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Well, if the member wants to have a general, wide-ranging debate and keep it going for days, well then I am quite willing to do it. But I am telling the \u201Cmember for Vodafone\u201D that he should at least read the bill that is being debated, rather than having a very wide-ranging debate on things that do not even come close to it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000472\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227d33ea57d5c84ff9b1cdb0795ef14579\u0022\u003EPeseta Sam Lotu-Iiga\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000473\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d4498777f0f54082b1141154c5a437a8\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: I want to work backwards through the bill and start off with the student loan repeal\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000474\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ebba047424c0478397776d238fc48b65\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Order! A point of order has been raised. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000475\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002233ecd7766b624f5394a03a297f670457\u0022\u003EPeseta Sam Lotu-Iiga\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am happy to take that member\u2019s call if he is\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000476\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002270a9ff2aeb6948c0817e6cb47ba65965\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: No, that is not a point of order. The member will sit down. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000477\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d76f5f55511e4d518e4041def88492a5\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am not going to refer to a point of order, but I did notice that the member could not even get to the bill himself. He could not even get to the bill himself. Maybe Vodafone did not give him the notes. Maybe the deputy chair of the Commerce Committee at the time, who was dealing with regulatory matters, should have thought twice about accepting a trip from Vodafone. Absolutely\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000478\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fd757e4e26174144b54f0417eeba9755\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry\u003C/span\u003E: So says the scalper!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000479\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002251223fc3ad084cfb85bb49e0663108a7\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Sorry? He is a scumbag? I agree with the member.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000480\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b45f0c71a98a409285a8f52856f0a6b7\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry\u003C/span\u003E: Scalper.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000481\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224448f30bd24246ee9bda0bfb33bb044d\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: He is a scumbag, says Maggie Barry. I absolutely agree that that was a terrible thing to do, but I am surprised that Maggie Barry said it, to start with. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000482\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003ELet us go back to the repeal of the 10 percent voluntary repayment bonus in respect of student loans. We told the Government this was nuts. We told the Government that this scheme was a sign of absolute educational failure. Anyone who was not in the last 18 months of their repayment period, who did this, was nuts. It would have been an indication that the tertiary education system\u2014at least in the numeracy and accounting area\u2014had failed, because it was better to stick the money in the bank to collect the interest on the money, and to pay it back once someone got close to the end of the loan, rather than use the scheme. We told the Government that. Now, I am told, actually, that there were a few students who used it, and that is a bit sad. But it is an indication of the quality of our tertiary education system. I probably take some responsibility for that, over time. That is sad. But what is also not made clear now is that that actually was doing the Government good. The Government is claiming that it is saving money by abolishing this scheme. But that is actually not true. That is actually not true, because if people were paying the money back early, then in fact the bonus was going to the Government and not to the student. But it was nuts. It should not have been introduced, and Part 3 is something that we will support.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000483\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EI think it is fair to say that Part 1 of the bill is a bit of a mixture. I think that David Parker made some comments about things that both you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker, who comes down from up north, know pretty well, and that is that farmers are good at rorting the livestock system. They move their valuations around to take advantage of the tax loopholes that are available. I can see from the wry smile on the face of Mr Deputy Speaker he understands exactly what I mean. It is a loophole that David Parker called for to be closed, at one stage in the past. Members opposite said it was ridiculous at the time and we should not do it. But I am glad to see that someone has learnt something over the years about closing loopholes. On this particular occasion, it will not hurt for this rort to be closed, although there are plenty of others that farmers take advantage of that are still open.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000484\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EThe reason that the Labour Party is voting against this bill is the mean attack on the kids who deliver newspapers around New Zealand. It is a mean attack on the kids who earn under $45 a week, and previously got a tax credit\u2014like a way of saving. Either they get it directly or they could leave it with the Inland Revenue Department and at the end of the year get a tax credit. For some of them it was $50 or $60 a year. Sometimes they got $50 or $60 a year back. That was a good thing and a fair thing. They got all of their tax back, if they earned under $45 a week and they were kids. I want to make it clear that that was earned income. It is not the farmers putting the assets in the kid\u2019s name and the interest being paid to the kid as a way of minimising the parents\u2019 tax. This is earned income. When it is earned income under $45 a week the kids used to get it back and that was fair. What has happened here? Bill English and John Key have put one hand each into the kids\u2019 pockets and taken the money away. They have taken the money away. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000485\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EThe worst thing is they have done it retrospectively. We have had these kids, since 1 April this year, accumulating $1 or $1.50 a week with the Inland Revenue Department, as part of their tax credits, and what is happening? John Key is taking the money off them. That money is theirs and is sitting in the Inland Revenue Department, and this retrospective legislation is retrospectively picking the pockets of the kids who deliver papers. Is it the kids of the members opposite? No, it is the kids of the poorest New Zealanders, who need the money to survive. They thought they were saving up a bit of money with the Inland Revenue Department, but the Government has reached in there and taken that money from them. It is cruel, it is nasty, and it is typical of Tories to pick on poor kids\u2014to pick on poor kids, who need the money. Some of them earn only 20 bucks a week. Their\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000486\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225f1453f8-c44e-4ce6-b699-64d600322276\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002263664c84682e4f46a2e279beb6053542\u0022\u003EHon Chester Borrows\u003C/span\u003E: You\u2019re a bloody bigot. You wouldn\u2019t know what our kids did to earn pocket money.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000487\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022baf9e22c67f443d28cec2488bc4283c1\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Sorry?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000488\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225f1453f8-c44e-4ce6-b699-64d600322276\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022694e300cfb564628a4fc447b27191ade\u0022\u003EHon Chester Borrows\u003C/span\u003E: You wouldn\u2019t know what our kids did to earn pocket money. You\u2019re just a bloody bigot.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000489\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022540a3ecb5d2e4cbcb8a448aa1feecc73\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you were just called a bloody bigot. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000490\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002244303aba35a44667bb8c8bb11ffe20c3\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I was checking something out in the Standing Orders and I did not hear what was said or the context it was said in, but it certainly sounded unparliamentary. I just caution the House that we will desist from that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000491\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002282b4f4c3874e432da52eeaec17757a99\u0022\u003EAndrew Williams\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I clearly heard the statement from this point in the House. I was offended by it, and I would like that member to stand, apologise, and withdraw. I was offended by it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000492\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221cd29e26c86043a1819784e6e4932806\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Speaking to the point of order, just to make the Standing Orders clear to the member, the only person who could object to it was the Deputy Speaker, because he was the person who was described as a bloody bigot. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000493\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002205547d5f43094207b5694e55b8903a46\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I have just said it is inappropriate. We will desist from it. As for the context in which it was said, I have to apologise to the House; my attention was somewhere else. Let us move on. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000494\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022529361d9e2a046e8957d7d88a60508b3\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to make it clear that the people who have little Tory pocket money schemes, where the parents slip their kids the cash, will not be taxed. So the people who go out to work and the kids who go out to work are the ones who will pay tax, and the ones whose parents can afford to give them their allowances will not be taxed. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226be7bad2d3264e31b74838d4d1f2cc87\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: It comes out of their trust fund. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000496\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022abc97a03c0d04c8e96105f4cdf7f23d8\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: It comes out of their trust funds. They do not care where it comes from. We are voting against this legislation because of one rotten area in it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022 data-id=\u0022e4d550bee08f4fab9b91b9a586169472\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000497\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e4d550bee08f4fab9b91b9a586169472\u0022\u003EDr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader\u2014Green):\u003C/span\u003E Speaking briefly to this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, because I do not think it is worth a very long speech, the Greens will also be opposing the bill, on the basis of the elements in it that are punishing hard-working children, which seems a very strange thing for the National Party to be doing, by introducing a scheme that makes it harder for children to go and earn a bit of pocket money. I would have thought that the National Party was of the view that we want to get people into the work ethic early on. So we want to encourage them, but then the Government is introducing a special piece of legislation to punish newspaper boys. It is having a special piece of legislation coming into the House, and there will be millions of dollars spent on it\u2014because you have got all these people sitting around, and they are all going to discuss it\u2014so that we can punish kids who are earning a little bit of pocket money. That seems a very strange thing for the National Party to bring to this House as part of its great tax reforms. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000498\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EOf course, what is really needed in this bill, the missing pieces of this bill, are the structural transformations in the economy driven by the tax changes. Where is the thing in this bill about introducing a capital gains tax? Why is that not within this bill? If we were talking about making the structural changes in the New Zealand economy so that we can actually move capital into the productive sector, then we would have a bill in front of us, and part of the bill would be that it was introducing a capital gains tax. When you look at the projections that are in the Budget that was just put out, they are for the current account deficit to get worse. Let us be clear: the Budget papers put out today, which form the background to the bill in front of us, were for the current account deficit to get worse over time. The background to the bill that we have in front of us is the Government\u2019s Budget analysis, and it says that as a result of what this Government is doing, the imbalances in our economy will get worse. If it was serious about dealing about the real imbalances in our economy, then surely it would deal with that, and that would be something that would be within this bill. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000499\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EI mean, to look at it in a larger picture, when this Government came in during 2008, the real economy was in trouble. There was a very large current account deficit and large private sector debt, but the Government books were in excellent shape. During this period of economic crisis the Government has been able to use the fact that there has been a lot of leeway to borrow money on the Government account, so it has borrowed a lot of money on the Government books to buffer the situation we have been through. It had the advantage of that very low Government debt. However, when it is kicked out of office in 2014, we are going to have a situation where not only will the real economy still be in deep trouble\u2014because its projections are that it will still be in deep trouble, with a large current account deficit and the net international investment position getting worse\u2014and in a bad position like the one National inherited, but also there will be no opportunity to buffer it through Government borrowing, because National is borrowing $75 billion. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000500\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThe big picture that sits behind this Budget is that National is ruining one of the good things it inherited from the Labour Government that came before it, which was that the Government\u2019s debt was very, very low. That has given it the opportunity to buffer the situation that we are in. When National loses office in 2014, not only will the real economy still be in deep trouble because of the huge current account deficit, the huge imbalances in our economy, which Bill English quite rightly identified when he first became finance Minister but has done nothing to fix, according to his own projections in his own Budget. He has done nothing to fix it, but then by 2014 the big buffer that the Government had available to it, which was the ability to borrow money on the Government account, will be gone. Not only will we be left with very large levels of Government debt but also we will have an underperforming economy with huge imbalances. That will be the legacy, based on the projections in the Budget that was presented today, of this Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000501\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EWe have a bill in front of us to make some very small changes, in terms of \u201Cbroadening the tax base\u201D, as I believe Bill English described these things\u2014putting a tax on newspaper deliverers is broadening the tax base these days\u2014when the real thing that we should have been doing to broaden the tax base and to actually make structural reform within the New Zealand economy is not happening. That is the reality of what this Government has done. That is a terrible travesty; that is a missed opportunity. It had the opportunity to actually begin the rebalancing of the New Zealand economy, and it has failed to do it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000502\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EOne of the things, of course, that the Government talks about a lot is Kiwi mums and dads. Well, I think in the context of this bill we should also talk about Kiwi mums, dads, and kids, because, you know, the Government is putting a tax on children. The Government constantly tells us that Kiwi mums and dads have all of this special cash out there, which they are going to be using to buy shares in the State-owned assets when they are privatised\u2014and children perhaps, as well; I do not know\u2014but the reality for actual, real New Zealand mums and dads is that they are struggling to pay the bills. The reality, because this Government is so wildly out of touch with the real world, is that real Kiwi mums and dads are struggling to pay the bills, so they do not have lots of cash out there that they can use to buy shares in these State-owned enterprises, which they currently own as taxpayers. They are actually struggling to pay the bills, because GST was put up by the Government in order to pay for tax cuts for upper income earners. The reality for real mums and dads is that they have to pay more for their food, because the Government increased GST. Why did it increase GST? In order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy\u2014for upper income earners. That is a ridiculous fiscal strategy, and it is an offensive fiscal strategy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000503\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eb49ee66-7ca7-472d-a4a1-b099fd594dfa\u0022\u003EThe Green Party will not be voting for the bill to tax hard-working kids. We think it is a ridiculous proposal. What we would like to see the Government bring to this House are some actual proposals that will rebalance the economy and make some real reforms, rather than this kind of legislation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00226dc89bbf-c2ef-45c9-89e4-d2b5952d8d16\u0022 data-id=\u0022b04b89418a7d4247885ad210fc882c25\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000504\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226dc89bbf-c2ef-45c9-89e4-d2b5952d8d16\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b04b89418a7d4247885ad210fc882c25\u0022\u003EKANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National):\u003C/span\u003E It is my pleasure to take a brief call on the first reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. National is focused on building a more competitive and productive economy. This can be achieved only by lifting our economic performance, creating more jobs, boosting incomes of all New Zealanders, and improving living standards. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000505\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226dc89bbf-c2ef-45c9-89e4-d2b5952d8d16\u0022\u003EThis bill deals with a very important aspect by removing three tax credits that no longer fit the purpose for which they were set up. First is the income under $9,980 tax credit, second is the childcare and housekeeping tax credit, and third is the tax credit for the active income of children, the latter of which will be replaced by a limited exemption. The changes will save $117 million over the next 4 years. These changes will help modernise the tax system and ensure tax deduction and tax credits are being targeted to the areas they are intended and needed for. I commend this bill to the House. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u00224d47312da51c48deb69614fd356beac4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000506\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00224d47312da51c48deb69614fd356beac4\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. It reminded me today, when I heard about the nickel-and-diming of our paperboys, of a song that was sung back when I was on the stage. I was the Artful Dodger and Fagin sang that famous song: \u201CYou\u2019ve got to pick a pocket or two, You\u2019ve got to pick a pocket or two, boys, You\u2019ve got to pick a pocket or two.\u201D I could recall being on the stage back then, and as a young person who delivered newspapers back then, who made money delivering newspapers and delivering the milk on a cold morning in Waipukurau, I could remember those words of Fagin\u2019s. We are reminded of those words today by this incredibly, incredibly austere Budget, which ends up basically going after the young children of New Zealand, because they will not even get a tax credit for the small wages that they make. The babysitter who makes a few extra dollars will not get a tax credit for that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000507\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThis is appalling. This means that, basically, this Government has run out of ideas, so much so that it has to start going after the young children of this country who earn a pittance. Why did it not go after the likes of the people who sold TradeMe for $700 million and did not pay a dollar in tax? You can sell TradeMe for $700 million, but the Government does not go after you; it goes after the children of New Zealand.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000508\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWhy does it look forward 3 years and suggest that it can make only a $197 million surplus in 2014-15, in 3 years? If that was a poll, that would be less than the margin of error. If the Government can come up with only a $197 million surplus in 2014-15 in its Budget, then, basically, it is working within the margin of error. We heard all the promises in 2009-10, we heard the promises in 2010-11, and they were repeated in the House today. All those promises of the two previous Budgets under the Minister of Finance, Bill English, have come to nothing. Most of the promises have been just absolutely not worth the huge piles of paper that they are written on. They are not worth the paper they are written on, because the promises of those last two Budgets have come to nothing. The promises of this Budget will be the same.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000509\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWe heard today from the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who was in the House with a number of the members here when the \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D was delivered by Ruth Richardson 20 years ago. The Rt Hon Winston Peters said that this Budget is a repeat all over again of failed measures by the National Government, failed policies going back 20 years. We could call this the \u201Cmini-me Budget\u201D. This is the \u201Cmini-me Budget\u201D. Bill English was a mini-me back then under Ruth Richardson, in those days. Now mini-me has grown up to be the big mini-me who is delivering the same Budget 20 years later, which basically is another failed Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000510\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThe Minister of Revenue is trying to net sprats instead of going after the sharks. This is a nickel-and-dime Budget. This is a pathetic Budget that really does bring New Zealand down to the lowest common denominator, maybe putting us just slightly above Greece in terms of our financial capabilities. Instead of this Government going after the big-picture stuff, it is going after the little sprats. I am not surprised to see today the headlines from the papers already, after this Budget. The headline in the online New Zealand Herald this afternoon was that this Budget is \u201CA most forgettable (and dull) Budget\u201D\u2014a most forgettable and dull Budget. Imagine, the biggest newspaper in this country and that is how it describes this Budget. Further, the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association this afternoon has put out a statement saying that this Budget still needs step change to turn round the economy, and that the \u201Cfundamental problems, such as a lack of export growth, have once again gone ignored.\u201D That is from our own New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association. It says the fundamentals are being ignored and, once again, there will be a lack of export growth. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000511\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f2b542908fb346498b4a394940d13f2e\u0022\u003EHon Gerry Brownlee\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000512\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220367e39dacdd40b6a8049c28fddd8cfe\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: That is the chief executive of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000513\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002244ba5c1f5572402f87c30ace08a0b8d2\u0022\u003EHon Gerry Brownlee\u003C/span\u003E: What\u2019s his name?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000514\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022630a9abfda0f48b1bf6d0ad86c6950ef\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: You should know his name. You should know his name. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000515\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bdc92b60fb4246e1b2328cdb11c520be\u0022\u003EHon Gerry Brownlee\u003C/span\u003E: What is his name?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000516\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226c45914d1b79458c999ce0585aa5fa6c\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: I have got his name written down here, but I will not get into it. I will arrange an appointment for you to go and see him.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000517\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EIt gets worse. The overseas merchandise trade statistics were released today, and I wonder whether the Minister from Christchurch knows what the figures were that were released today. Does the Minister know?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000518\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c01c597ea41d4b03a6c69ddd61924849\u0022\u003EHon Gerry Brownlee\u003C/span\u003E: They\u2019re all good out of Christchurch. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000519\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c6b4856a45674814a682810b18dbb4f8\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: They were not good. Today the overseas merchandise trade statistics show that exports are down 17 percent on April last year. They are down 17 percent on April last year. That is appalling. This country is dependent on trading our way out of the recession\u2014which keeps getting referred to by the Government\u2014and if we do not export more, this country will continue to slide. To have a 17 percent drop compared with 12 months ago means this Government is not performing. But it is not surprising, because the future growth that the Government sees is in the likes of a conference centre in Auckland\u2014all looking inwards; not looking at the harbour and not looking at the beauty of Mount Eden or the beauty of the Waitemat\u0101, but looking inwards at its pokie machines, looking inwards at its 500 pokie machines. That is the Government\u2019s vision for New Zealand\u2014a conference centre. People fly from all over the world to come to beautiful New Zealand to see what is being provided by our Minister of Tourism. Who is he again? Who is our Minister of Tourism? Does anyone know who our Minister of Tourism is? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000520\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002240f3d51e743943c6a77de0837559d9f1\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor\u003C/span\u003E: \u201CSpray and Walk Away\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000521\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002285edc730d9f24057a81162af44b468a8\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, \u201CMr Spray and Walk Away\u201D. I had forgotten. That is right. \u201CMr Spray and Walk Away\u201D is our Minister of Tourism. People come all the way here, and what do they get? Our economic development package for this country is 500 more pokie machines\u2014500 more. Is it not ironic that those 500 pokie machines are going to be in the very same building that the National Party had its election night party in, the very same building that the National Party had its national conference in, and the very same building that it launched its 2011 election campaign and its 2008 election campaign in? They were launched in the very same building where there are going to be 500 more pokie machines. It is interesting, is it not, that National\u2019s economic development seems to go hand in hand with where it has its conferences. It seems to go very much hand in hand with where it has its conferences. You do just wonder where the strategy is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000522\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ESo when we see figures today and we are told today that the future hopes are out of Christchurch and it is all going to start, we ask when it is starting. We were down there last month, and it all seems to still be coming down. There is not a lot going up\u2014not a lot going up. There seems to be an awful lot of tradesmen and an awful lot of builders heading off to Australia and other places where they can get work. There is not a lot happening down there\u2014not a lot happening down there.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000523\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First certainly does not support this Budget. We think this is, again, just like the \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D in 1991. This is another absolutely hopeless Budget for the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand economy is not going to gain from this. This is not addressing issues such as where the New Zealand dollar is, what we are going to do about the New Zealand dollar being overinflated in terms of its value, how we are going to stimulate exports, how we are going to help grow the export sector, and how we are going to create jobs. This Budget is all about nickel-and-diming. This is all about taking money off the young people of New Zealand. This is about attacking middle-class and poor New Zealand families, and keeping the money in the hands of the rich and the wealthy\u2014keeping the money in the hands of the mates of the National Party, basically. This Budget is about protecting National\u2019s mates and keeping its mates in good pasture, particularly those who go to the likes of gambling halls, who can use the pokie machines, and who have disposable income to go and get involved in all that sort of thing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000524\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWhat we need to do is have a rethink. We need to have a rethink. At the next election I am sure this country will elect a Government that will start to stimulate the economy, stimulate exports, get alongside the likes of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and get this economy moving, not one that attacks the children of New Zealand to nickel-and-dime the Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022 data-id=\u00225b97dfc27b0a418b953496969c980024\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000525\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225b97dfc27b0a418b953496969c980024\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL (National\u2014Rodney):\u003C/span\u003E It is with great pleasure that I stand in support of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. I would just like to say that as a 12-year-old I actually did have a paper run. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000526\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022badb0a39-849c-462a-b32f-77fc017c9fc2\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f68a5839082d4410be0bf7b666fd8d34\u0022\u003EHon Simon Bridges\u003C/span\u003E: Don\u2019t tell me you were paid under the table.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000527\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a1f5a9256861473bb0fb964ec6f0512e\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: Well, I have to say that I cannot ever remember submitting a tax return as a 12-year-old paper boy. It never happened, and I cannot remember any of my mates rushing home to fill out their tax returns and get them in either. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000528\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003EThis is an old piece of legislation. It is about time we cleaned it up, and we are cleaning it up. I watched something today in the House as a new member of Parliament that I really could not believe. I could not believe the fact that when the co-leader of the Green Party Russel Norman got up and made a speech I actually agreed with something he said.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000529\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022143e8427a7864c468dee481896991dc0\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000530\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a80f7d28d1a04896a567bcb866101d89\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, I did\u2014I did. When he came out\u2014[Interruption] I know, I know. But when he came out he made a bold statement by saying that National inherited a mess in 2008\u2014National inherited a mess. I looked down at the Labour benches and there was just stony-faced silence. But it was all too good to be true. Mr Norman just came back into the House, and I think the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Shearer, must have called him and said: \u201CRussel, we\u2019re putting strain on the bromance here. You\u2019re going to have get back in there and correct this.\u201D He came back into the House and I listened to him for 5 minutes trying to retract and trying to step away from what he said in his earlier speech.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000531\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e8fa78f824f049308c742bbe4192940e\u0022\u003ECatherine Delahunty\u003C/span\u003E: You don\u2019t know Russel very well.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000532\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229c74613685dd43ee8ff112a7ebe84c82\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: I know him well enough to see what I saw. Anyway, I am very happy to stand in support of this bill. It is time that we updated a lot of this old legislation, and this is a very good step in the right direction. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u00229822286f271b472eaba3337be463a648\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000533\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229822286f271b472eaba3337be463a648\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E This bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, carries some real fish-hooks. It is a terrible shame and it is a waste of opportunity, as this whole Budget that we have witnessed today also is. We are spending a couple of million dollars\u2019 worth of parliamentary time tinkering\u2014tinkering\u2014and it is a shocking waste of taxpayers\u2019 money when we are picking the pockets of paper boys and girls around the country because there are no other bright ideas, it seems. This comes from a Government that has already delivered tax cuts, 44 percent of the value of which went to the top 10 percent, and just 2 percent of the value of which went to the bottom 20 percent. That was those 2010 tax cuts. The GST has been cutting in for those on low incomes as well, and we know there are a lot of people around this country who are hurting right now. This Budget brings them no hope\u2014no hope whatsoever. It is tinkering. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000534\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe have in this bill the proposal to abolish three tax credits. It is a miserly proposal\u2014a miserly proposal\u2014picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls around the country. I too, like the last speaker, Mark Mitchell, was a paper boy in my younger years. I got paid, I think, $2.86 or $3.16 for my deliveries of my first paper, and that was on a contract. On my next delivery round I delivered the Auckland Star, and finally I was promoted to delivering the New Zealand Herald. Those little bits of money enabled me to appreciate the value of earning money, and like many members of this House I have enjoyed many, many jobs since. It also gave me pride in being able to earn that money. I know that National members do not think that is much, and they do not care particularly for the little bits of money that those paper boys and paper girls earn around the country. But to take from them the money that they were getting in a tax credit, that they looked forward to, seems to be nothing but miserly. There is no other word for it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000535\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe next thing we see in this bill is the abolition of elections to leave a herd valuation scheme, and that is a sensible move. It was proposed by the Labour Party and it is delightful to see that it has been taken up. But again, that we need to go into urgency to achieve this change shows how limited the range of options for the Government is in terms of bills to debate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000536\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe final part of that bill deals with punishing students who have worked hard to pay off their loans. The rebate\u2014the encouragement to pay off their loans more quickly\u2014has been removed from these students. We know that lots of students are struggling. I see them in Dunedin all the time. Those students work hard. They study hard. They are eating noodles from bowls. They are making ends meet, and they are doing their best. But this Government seems determined to make it harder for them, and it seems determined to shut more and more students out of education. The Government has frozen the level of the incomes that the parent threshold relates to in order to make sure that fewer and fewer students will qualify for student allowances. Many of these students also go out to work to support themselves through their studies, and they will have to work longer and harder under this Government and will have less time to work hard on their studies to ensure that they are good, contributing taxpayers in the future. This Government seems to have no vision for educating its citizens, for making sure they get the best skills, for encouraging them to do that, and for making sure they can make the most of their opportunities. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000537\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe will hear more about the way in which the years of allowance have been taken from these students so they cannot get the longer degrees, so they cannot add the value that they might add to this country. It is going to eliminate a group of students\u2014those who are middle and low-income earners. It is not going to affect the really wealthy ones. It will affect only the low and middle-income earners. It is wasteful\u2014it is wasteful of our talent. We have also seen that the real value of student support is going down. It has been going down. It has been trending down for a long time. The last thing we need is more punishment for students. But that is what we have got here in this bill\u2014that is what we have got. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000538\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIf I can return to the matter of\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000539\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224f7d8332c8bd4c098fc0296a85bad47b\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: The kids.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000540\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c0e1603f2aa9454b97500ce9984b3763\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014the kids, that is right\u2014the paper boys and girls. What we find when we look at the regulatory impact statement is something quite astonishing. This attempt to broaden the tax base of New Zealand through pinching money from the kids not only, perhaps, is a little bit of a strange idea to members on this side of the House but also we can see that it is an inefficient idea. I read from the regulatory impact statement: \u201CGenerally speaking, the proposed option should not impose any new compliance costs on business.\u201D That is how these things regularly start. But wait. It says further: \u201CHowever, businesses that employ only school children on very low wages (below $2,340 p.a.) may have to begin withholding PAYE from these employees from 1 April 2013.\u201D This is increasing compliance so that we can take money from kids who earn under $3,000 a year. That is outrageous. If this is the Government\u2019s big idea, it is embarrassing. This is a zero idea. Businesses employing schoolkids earning below $2,340 per annum, those very low wages, may have to begin withholding pay as you earn. That means increased compliance. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000541\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe can see that that is not going to be all. There will be other employers in the same situation. We will see it is not only schools that have to go through with this measure. We will find small delivery companies around the country, with other low-paid workers, that will have to ensure that those kids who are doing jobs for them go out there and pay as you earn, and get robbed of their little tax credit. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000542\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThis is not base-broadening. This is certainly not visionary stuff. We have got an economy that is struggling. There is no doubt about that. We have been buying more than we sell for too long, and this Government seems to have no plan to address it. It is very focused on Government debt. That is a problem that we agree is not too difficult to solve. Labour would have got there in the same time the National Government is planning to get there. But there are bigger issues. We have got this issue with buying more than we are selling. Our exporters need support. We need pro-growth tax policies, not pinching money from paper boys and paper girls. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000543\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe have had the idea of pinching money from the paper boys and the paper girls. We have got this tinkering. It resembles the wider Government tax programme, which I am sure we will hear a little bit more of as the year goes through. It is very much in the same line. There is no attempt to wrestle with the bigger issues, such as the capital gains tax that would push money towards the productive sector and the monetary policy that would support our export businesses. If we do not change anything in this area of taxation, nothing will change. New Zealand will continue to limp along, 50,000 people a year will continue to leave for Australia, 50,000 more people a year will end up on the unemployment benefit, and 50,000 more people a year will end up out of work. This is not good enough; it is simply not good enough. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000544\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIn some of the publicity put out with these changes regarding the tax credits, we see that the childcare and housekeeper tax credit is being removed also. The reason given is that it affects mainly high-decile people. That may be true, and if the data presented in the publicity material, which we have had a very short time to look over, is correct, then there may be some very good reason for amending that. But we also see that at least 20 percent\u2014and, by the look of it, closer to 30 percent\u2014of those families who receive this tax credit are actually from lower-income households. We are going to remove that tax credit from them because it is too hard to do anything different, it seems. It is all about making sure that things are simple, in one sense, yet we are going to increase compliance on schoolkids in the other sense. It makes no sense. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000545\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EAs I draw to a close I want to state again that if we do not change things greater than this in our tax system, we will continue to see those same trends that we have seen up until now. We will continue to see our country borrowing. We will continue to see private debt growing. We will continue to see our citizens buying more than our exporters sell, and we will continue to see exporters struggling in the face of unhelpful policies that the current Government is putting forward. Fifty thousand more people will end up going to Australia every year, 50,000 more people will end up unemployed, and 50,000 more people will end up on benefits. It is not good enough. We need bolder tax policy. This policy is not going to do it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022 data-id=\u0022479cf4ec815e4111bf6f236724ed0f67\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000546\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022479cf4ec815e4111bf6f236724ed0f67\u0022\u003EMAGGIE BARRY (National\u2014North Shore):\u003C/span\u003E I rise to speak to the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, which is part of a Budget that I absolutely believe is the correct and right Budget for these times. It is our second zero Budget, and it is an effort to lift our economic performance, increase the amount of jobs, and grow this economy. This is something that we understand very well on this side of the House, but is something that does not seem to be at all appreciated by our opponents. The job growth, of course, will be occurring in a place like Christchurch. We have 17,000 alone that are needed quite soon. That is an excellent thing. Also, what is excellent about this bill is that Peter Dunne as the Minister of Revenue has meticulously, as is his wont, gone through all the obsolete, old legislation, looked at our tax carefully, and started to cull and prune to get rid of a whole lot of rubbish. We have heard a whole lot of rubbish from our opponents, who seem to be preoccupied with pick-pocketing, with the strange things\u2014I seem to think that the man who burst into song from New Zealand First was actually admitting to petty larceny in his early days.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000547\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e6b4dc55-3561-49a8-a871-ae005354ef90\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002253515dd3f9414bd5abfeab49d46eba6f\u0022\u003EHon Gerry Brownlee\u003C/span\u003E: X Factor failure.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000548\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c39092682f5343ca88e25312951e2103\u0022\u003EMAGGIE BARRY\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, well, indeed, that too. They all seem to sing their way through life. But it is an unedifying spectacle to see this issue taken so lightly. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000549\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EMuch has been made of paper delivery. I myself was a paper delivery person, as was my colleague Mark Mitchell, and many others, including David Clark. Who amongst us ever filed a tax claim? Nobody\u2014because it is not what kids do. So what the Government is doing is carefully looking at getting rid of the nonsense. We cannot get rid of all the nonsense, but what we can do is get rid of the obsolete, outrageous, and silly things so that our tax system becomes modernised and ensures that tax deductions, and tax credits for that matter, are being targeted at the areas where they are needed and intended. So that is something we are approaching with rigour. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000550\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EUnlike the Opposition, we acknowledge that times have changed, and with those changes wider Government policies have also changed. So when we look at things like paper delivery boys, we look at the fact that the children will certainly not be able to claim that refund of tax that is already being correctly deducted and paid by an employer. So the claim is not needed. These tax credit changes will also be helping to make the Inland Revenue Department much more efficient. I think a lot of people are filing tax returns simply to get these outdated tax credits. This is not needed and is not necessary. Unlike the Opposition, we want to get rid of a lot of this chaff and nonsense, and concentrate on getting the economy back on track, where it belongs. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000551\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EThe student loan scheme is something that has been talked about quite a bit. By repealing the voluntary repayment bonus, we will be saving about $12 million a year. It is well known that we have one of the most generous student loan support systems in the world, and we are committed to interest-free student loans, but we are determined to reduce that write-off. Since we came into Government we have reduced it from 49c in each dollar down to 45c, and we do intend to get it down, over time, to 40c in the dollar. This Budget, the 2012 Budget, the right Budget for the times, will help in that goal. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000552\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EWe are going to require graduates and ex-students to pay off their student loans a little earlier. We are doing them a favour\u2014\u201CGet the monkey off your back early, before you get into mortgages, and kids, and all the rest of it.\u201D We are encouraging them to do the right thing. That is what this Government does all the time, and that is what previous Governments have failed to do\u2014absolutely woefully. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000553\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003ESo I commend Peter Dunne for his meticulous work. There were a lot of obsolete elements. We are closing the loopholes regarding livestock. Even the farmers admit that they have been getting away with that one for a long time. So unlike the Opposition, we do understand that we need moderate growth in this economy and that we do need to reform the tax system, and this is an important part of it. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u00226c1ac01e2b9c416fa575184f4f9476c7\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000554\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226c1ac01e2b9c416fa575184f4f9476c7\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: The 11th call is a split call.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022 data-id=\u0022d2483d4fdea2401ba0036193ce17a4ec\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000555\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022d2483d4fdea2401ba0036193ce17a4ec\u0022\u003EDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour\u2014Wigram):\u003C/span\u003E It is my pleasure to join the great tax debate of 2012, following the Budget. Are we here today to debate the re-gearing of the New Zealand economy, to turn it into a productive economy that will deliver jobs, growth, and a decent income for New Zealanders? No, we are not. Instead, we are here to literally raid the piggy banks of the nation\u2019s youth. We have been told by members opposite that this is just petty cash. Well, this just shows that this is a Government that is out of touch and does not realise what this money means to these kids. The Government is closing the loopholes, and we have got the great euphemism in terms of it trying to crib back this $117 million\u2014it is that the Government is \u201Ctightening these tax credits, including the active income from children.\u201D I love the language. So here we have it: part 3 of the great economic strategy; the one that started with a cycleway, then moved on to the \u201CHoliday Highway\u201D, and part 3, ladies and gentlemen, is the paper route. Is this the brighter future that we were promised? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000556\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EOne can only imagine the policy discussion that took place: \u201CIt\u2019s time to crack down on these little bludgers. They\u2019re getting away with far too much. They\u2019re not paying their fair share. Get more out of them!\u201D. So there we have it\u2014$117 million clawed back, pinched from the pockets of our kids. The Government needs the income, the members opposite tell us, and what do they need the income for? Well, it is our children who are being pick-pocketed to pay the $120 million tag of flogging off our assets. The Government is clawing back $117 million from the pockets of the children of our nation, but we could be saving that by simply not paying the bill to sell our assets. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000557\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003ELabour opposes this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill because it is mean-spirited. We oppose it because it just shows that this is a Government that is out of ideas. It is a Government that has no plan to fix the economy. It has no plan to create jobs, and it has no plan to deliver higher incomes. Instead, what it is doing is targeting young people. The Budget is targeting young people, and it is disincentivising them from going on and achieving their potential in tertiary studies and post-graduate studies. The most mean-spirited part of it all is that it is taking back a little bit of an incentive for kids to work. These are the hard-working children of our nation, who are eventually going to get on a jet plane and leave our country, because we are not sending messages of hope, and we are not sending messages that there is a future in New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000558\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EThis is a Government that is certainly not delivering a brighter future for any child in New Zealand. This pernicious piece of legislation, which has come before the House this afternoon, is showing the very little value that this Government puts on our nation\u2019s youth. It is not a laughing matter. We have been accused by members opposite of not taking it seriously. We take the abandonment of the children of this nation by members opposite very seriously, and I am proud to stand here and oppose another part of the abandonment of the children of New Zealand in this legislation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022 data-id=\u00229e126f6b47e64292b2a410e5968f0055\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000559\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229e126f6b47e64292b2a410e5968f0055\u0022\u003EGARETH HUGHES (Green):\u003C/span\u003E Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ng\u0101 mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. The Budget delivered today has been called all sorts of names: a zero Budget, the nickel-and-dime Budget, the \u201Cblack\u201D Budget, the boring Budget, and the tinkering Budget. What is clear is that in National\u2019s Budget there is a clear deficit: we have over $8 billion of deficit. But, more important, this Budget has a deficit of vision, a deficit of compassion for our kids\u2014those 200,000 kids growing up in poverty\u2014and a deficit of ideas. I think you can most graphically see that deficit of ideas in the first Budget bill this Government has put to this House, to pass through all stages under urgency: the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. All the bill does is pinch the pockets of those hard-working kids, as Megan Woods put it, by removing the $240 tax credit. The bill also removes the failing 10 percent student loan repayment bonus. A deficit of ideas is exactly what we are seeing in this bill. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000560\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003EThis country has a huge number of challenges, and many of them were elucidated by the Minister of Finance. We have an $8 billion deficit. We have $75 billion in foreign debt. We have the lowest growth in 50 years. We have huge structural problems, and we have concerning global economic conditions.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000561\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003ESitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022 data-id=\u002241c2673e76e64704aae01953a29d5ae9\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000562\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002241c2673e76e64704aae01953a29d5ae9\u0022\u003EPAUL GOLDSMITH (National):\u003C/span\u003E It is my pleasure to take a call on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. We have had a lot of overblown rhetoric on the other side about what it will or will not do, but, really, it is more a sensible tidying up of the tax system. It is an omnibus bill that deals with three mains areas: the livestock valuation rules, three tax credits that are no longer fit for purpose\u2014removing those\u2014and cancelling the student loan repayment incentive. All up, we estimate that it could bring in an extra $300 million of revenue over 4 years, and that is not an inconsiderable sum. It is not going to change the world, but it will build on the important tax changes that were made in the 2010 Budget and that have formed a basis for a lot of the economic growth that we have had in the last while. It will build on the strong economic performances in the 2010 Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000563\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003EIt has been hard to figure out what the Opposition has been saying on this bill. First, we had Mr Mallard saying it would be crazy for people to pay back their loans, then we had David Clark saying we should be keeping this 10 percent student loan repayment incentive. I was not quite sure where we had got to there. It is worth thinking just quickly on this bill where we might have been if things had gone awry and Labour had control of the place. We would have been looking at a capital gains tax coming in. I just wonder how you tax your way to growth. How would New Zealand have been saved by Labour taxing every small business, every shareholder, and every farm? I do not know how that would have developed growth in this country.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000564\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003EWe talk about vision. The only vision we seem to see on the other side of the House is one that is about expanding the size of the State and expanding the size of the tax system. Our vision is to set people free to be as enterprising as they desire, and that is what this Budget is all about. I am very pleased to speak in favour of this bill and I commend it to the House. Thank you very much.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00225c85faa7d32c4baa9f907dd4bd295d2e\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill be now read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000565\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022ffb77c2b2b4a4948902a8c0156fd4426\u0022\u003ESecond Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u0022dada7cd37d634e8098ed3106f8f7c04a\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000566\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022dada7cd37d634e8098ed3106f8f7c04a\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue)\u003C/span\u003E on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill be now read a second time. Ours is a broad - based low rate tax system that aims to raise revenue in the most efficient manner to support the Government\u2019s aspirations for the economy. We value fairness in the system, to ensure that everyone pays their fair and proper share of tax. For this reason, this bill seeks to repeal two existing tax credits, replace another, and also remove the voluntary repayment bonus for student loan repayments, as well as introduce new changes to livestock regime rules. I will not go through each of these in detail, because they were covered during the first reading debate, but let me take some time to discuss some of the issues that have been raised. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000567\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI want to talk first about the tax credit for income under $9,880. This was originally devised as a temporary means for compensating a small group of workers following the 1986 tax reforms, which I think Mr Mallard will recall\u2014maybe other members will have read about them in the history books. The important point is that today none of the original target audience of those reforms actually qualifies for the credit, but it is still being claimed by other people for whom it was not intended. There is no clear policy rationale why people who currently claim that credit, such as those who work full-time for a small part of the year, should pay less tax than others with the same income but who earn it a different way, such as someone who works part-time for the whole year, who is not eligible for the credit as it stands. It is also not fair\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000568\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002211d0abe5fa704c758667ae4374f2e462\u0022\u003EHon David Cunliffe\u003C/span\u003E: We see him in full flight tonight!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000569\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022262220ec61134822916a0d5549360619\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Well, there is a long night ahead of us, I am told.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000570\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f30a4f3385f640a6b23c77d6a8446fc4\u0022\u003EHon David Cunliffe\u003C/span\u003E: You\u2019ll need all your flair.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000571\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227f5f79a8ad91481bb260809b6c1dc7a6\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Just be patient, Mr Cunliffe; it will come. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000572\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EIt is also not fair that although the majority of farmers\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000573\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d3c42f90505442cba14baf6652e6c48e\u0022\u003EHon David Cunliffe\u003C/span\u003E: How long has the member been in the House? We\u2019re still waiting.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000574\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bca22880471b4aac92dd8a1d99d5f139\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: A lot longer than that member has been and is likely to be. What I was saying is that although the majority of farmers comply with the letter and spirit of the existing tax law, some farmers have been exploiting some of the existing rules with regard to the herd and the livestock schemes, the herd and the standard cost schemes, to their tax advantage. In respect of those measures, we announced in last year\u2019s Budget a consultation process for change. This Budget gives effect to the outcome of that consultation, the decisions of which were announced in around March of this year. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000575\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI want to say a little word or two about the student loan repayment bonus changes. The important point here is that that bonus was introduced as a way of encouraging people to make their repayments, but it is being abolished now because what we have actually discovered is, one, that some of the other measures that have been put in place subsequently have been far more effective in terms of encouraging repayment, and, two, as with the transitional tax measure I referred to earlier, the purpose is being distorted, and we are getting people claiming the repayment bonus in the same year that they are making a repayment and actually benefiting from the system. That was not what was intended at all, so that is why that is being repealed. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000576\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EI want to talk now about paper boys, which Mr Mallard will be delighted about. It was interesting during the first reading debate how paper boys somehow seized the public imagination. At a somewhat frivolous but none the less relevant level, I should point out that since the demise of evening papers, we actually no longer have paper boys. Mr Mallard is a wily character. He may well say\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000577\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002295038a6c275c48af9e2e3129a364a9dd\u0022\u003ETracey Martin\u003C/span\u003E: We have paper boys!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000578\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e4c7769fd142447da3d678e7ee4754ec\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: There is a squawking creature to my right, whom I will ignore. I come to Mr Mallard, who\u2014[Interruption] I cannot understand a word you are saying, I am sorry. Mr Mallard may well say in response\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000579\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f4eb16fd9e2040a3b338e63d917a0b4a\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Community newspapers.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000580\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f481bfbd19f44487b3fe239d8030ea54\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Exactly, and I shall tell him that community newspaper workers are actually, funnily enough, described as \u201Cpamphlet droppers\u201D and were never covered by this regime anyway. In fact, their income will be under the $2,340 threshold, which will still apply. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000581\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhat we are doing here\u2014and I thought that the member would be interested in this\u2014and what we are putting in place is the last nail in the coffin of Muldoonism. The existing child tax credit was introduced by Sir Robert Muldoon in 1978 as a temporary measure, because at that time\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000582\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002268a4082727194030879783dfd2e197b4\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: At the point he put taxes up to 66 percent.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000583\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a1caf232306742929c6279d90b03d8aa\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Probably. At that time\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000584\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002235d91f2a5d9a4ff4b4d0a440eef95987\u0022\u003EPaul Goldsmith\u003C/span\u003E: That was later\u20141982.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000585\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e1a2f0f368e54ea49ecfece823466dec\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: You can have this argument all you like\u2014I think you are right actually, Mr Goldsmith; it was, because there was the caravan and the boat tax at the same period. But the point I was making was that in 1978 this was put in place because at that point most\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000586\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ffe4d5676fc24c9ab5a892ded69e5fe0\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! My left and my right: you cannot interject on each other. The Minister has the floor.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000587\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e8be9619a84b4326ba41849f9b61a12d\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: In 1978\u2014this is a riveting story, I know, but it needs to be placed on the record, to put some context around this debate\u2014very few employers deducted tax at source. A number of the people in the category of being paper boys and girls, and others of that ilk, found themselves facing the potential of tax bills at the end of the year because the tax had not been properly deducted. So this temporary transitional measure was put in place. Thirty-three years later, most of the paper boys and girls have long since ceased to be in that role, but, more important, most employers now actually make deductions at source, anyway. So the purpose for the concession, if you like, has become outdated. It is no longer necessary. The people who are affected, if they are earning above the $2,340 threshold, will be able to file their tax returns in the normal way that they have been able to do for some time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000588\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e8e403d449aa47e1a5083f2ad928ca91\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: And if they are earning under?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000589\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b983c25843514be991ee6ff233163f6e\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: And if they are earning under that, we are not particularly interested in them, frankly; the exemption will remain.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000590\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002211632a9a8c514770905017946bfcbdd4\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: No, it doesn\u2019t. The member is absolutely wrong. He should read his own bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000591\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022009ad1cffcc34ef29dd9f97912152e25\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Well, I drafted it, and I should know what it says, Mr Mallard. I appreciate that that is not something\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000592\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226e64d782d96d41089f1a9702f9c58560\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: He should read his own press statement.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000593\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220d848ce1f5414894af5987cb188298ff\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE\u003C/span\u003E: Well, it is rather difficult to make that claim when you actually write your own press statements. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000594\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EAnyway, the point is that this is not a significant measure. It is removing something that has become completely outdated. Frankly, a lot of the heat that has been generated about it has been good fun in the context of the debate, but members opposite complained earlier about, I think, a couple of million dollars being spent on Parliament passing this allegedly unnecessary legislation, and that is a pretty expensive price to pay for a little bit of fun. I commend this bill to the House, and move its second reading.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022 data-id=\u0022861544adce08489daad89d6334bb3447\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000595\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022861544adce08489daad89d6334bb3447\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader\u2014Labour):\u003C/span\u003E Normally, the second reading would be taking place after a select committee process, had this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, been sent to a select committee. I wonder how many of what the regulatory impact statement tells us are the 68,600 children receiving the tax credit that Mr Dunne has just told us that no one is getting, whom Mr Dunne does not care about, and I wonder how many parents of these 68,600 children who are mentioned in the regulatory impact statement would have come to the select committee and said: \u201CThis tax credit is actually very good. This is about helping to teach our children about the value of work, the importance of paying tax, but that when you haven\u2019t reached a certain income threshold you can actually get that money back.\u201D That would have been something that might have happened in the select committee.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000596\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EIs it not amazing that the Government\u2019s big tax idea, the first thing up straight after the Budget, is to pick the pockets of paper boys and paper girls. That is the big, big idea in taxation from this Government. We are not standing here tonight debating whether or not there should be a capital gains tax. We are not standing here tonight debating whether or not we should make the tax system fairer. No, we are debating whether or not the Government should penny-pinch from children who are getting their income\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000597\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227fd0eac2a4a3430c87172ec4d30ffc41\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry\u003C/span\u003E: Fruit and vege GST. What else have they dropped?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000598\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c9bc7f27107542d5a4fd3a5a22c023dc\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: Well, Maggie Barry wants to start a debate about GST and about it going up to 15 percent. We could have had that debate, but, no, we are not. We are not having a debate about a capital gains tax, and we are not having a debate about actually taxing all income, not just the income of actual workers but the income that people get from selling off their second homes and other capital gains that they make. We could be debating that. We could be debating how to broaden our tax base, how to make sure we actually have a fairer tax system, but, instead, the bill that comes in front of us tonight sets about picking the pockets of 68,600 children. That is a ridiculous thing for this Government to be focusing on. It is pathetic penny-pinching. It has nothing to do with growing our economy, and it has nothing to do with making our tax system fairer. Instead, that is what the Government thinks is its No. 1 priority to come to the House with tonight. It is bizarre politics.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000599\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EBut it fits with a Budget that has completely missed the point, that has sent people over to Australia, that has said to New Zealanders that this Government has no plans for growth, this Government has lost all of its ambition, and, instead, it wants to bring in a tax bill to get to 68,600 children and the meagre income they get from doing this kind of work. The fact is that the Inland Revenue Department collecting that money, which is a little bit of a bonus for those children at the end of the year, the bringing of them into the workforce and enabling their understanding of how things work, has to be got rid of. That is the kind of pitiful taxation bill that is in front of us tonight.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000600\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EI want to also refer to the student loan repayment changes. I do think that here we have an example of where the Government is finally getting around to doing something that we have recommended from day one. Mr Mallard was highly critical of the education standards of New Zealand that might lead to people actually using the repayment bonus scheme, because it did not work for them. But it did turn out that some people did use it, which is reasonably remarkable. The fact is that not very many of them did use it, and, actually, it has not worked at all.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000601\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EIf we want to go back just a little bit to when National brought in the policy in terms of a loan repayment bonus, we can see some of the excited statements that were made at the time. We have a statement here that says: \u201CWe estimate that this measure will reduce repayment times of those who take up the bonus by 1.5 years, and we believe that it will decrease the upfront cost of new lending to 39.4c. How could anyone vote against that?\u201D Anne Tolley said that in, I believe, a brief period when she was the Minister for Tertiary Education, before Steven Joyce came and took that portfolio off her. That is what she told us. She asked how anyone could vote against that. Well, it will be interesting to see what Anne Tolley does tonight. Will she vote for the repeal of this thing that she said nobody could vote against because it was going to reduce the upfront cost of lending to 39.4c? Well, it did not do that. It did not work at all, in fact, but Anne Tolley told us that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000602\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EBut it was not just Anne Tolley. We also heard, in most earnest tones, the following statement: \u201CThis bill is a significant step to encourage student loan repayment and, more important, to reduce the overall repayment times. The message, very clearly, is that our young people will be debt-free sooner,\u201D. Who said that? Louise Upston said that. She was up just after Anne Tolley, extolling the virtues of the student loan repayment bonus. But there is one more person who got on his feet to proclaim the importance of this, and he said: \u201CI say to the House that this is a significant incentive for students to pay their loans earlier. I cannot fathom why anyone would oppose the introduction of such an incentive.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000603\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022046b4b2449524246a831daec0971d1c3\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000604\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b704dee6926a477fae2187b121e6a99f\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: Peter Dunne said that. That is the Minister. That is the Minister who moved the bill today. That is actually a new record for Peter Dunne. Previously we have had Peter Dunne standing up in the House to repeal bills that he had put forward when he was a Minister in a Labour Government, but I do believe that this is the first time that the Minister has come to repeal a bill that he put up when he was in a National Government. It is not about shortening repayment times; it is shortening Mr Dunne\u2019s time to go back on what he has already done.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000605\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022659b0f9ffe9c4d61b1e9b3d3e7b6300f\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Hardly a flip-flop; just a straight flop.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000606\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225ac71a059b5f47f2b7b09cffc7d736e1\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: Well, yes, Mr Mallard, a complete flop. From 2009 to now Mr Dunne has turned round. He said that he could not fathom why anyone would oppose the introduction of such an incentive. Well, I cannot fathom why it was introduced in the first place by Mr Dunne, and here he is, 3 years later, as Mr Mallard said, not a flip-flop, just a flop. Louise Upston and Anne Tolley got up on their feet to tell us what a wonderful thing this is. Here we are, straight after the Budget, ready on this side of the House to debate the overall taxation system and what the fiscal policies should be, but, instead, what we are debating is the National Government flip-flopping on something it did in 2009, and trying to take money out of the pockets of 68,600 children. That is the best we have got from the National Government out of this Budget: a debate about things that those members did that they want to change 3 years later, and petty penny-pinching from children in this country.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000607\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EWe could be having a debate today about a capital gains tax. We could be having a debate today about superannuation and about savings. We could be doing those things.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000608\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224aa36feaccb943f4ab9063098562702a\u0022\u003ETodd McClay\u003C/span\u003E: We did that at the election.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000609\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bd128f19ae0047399b130cb876e18ca4\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: Todd McClay says the election. I am not sure. I went to about 22 public meetings with my National Party opponent in Wellington Central and I am pretty sure he did not get up and say: \u201CWe\u2019re going to take the money out of the pockets of paper boys and paper girls.\u201D I might have missed it. Did any of my colleagues hear that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000610\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225303e664a85b42998487f87ba3cd3023\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000611\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e0ee0605784249dfbdd55737c643c934\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: No, none of us heard that. Todd McClay said that there was an election. Mr McClay, I think Rotorua might have turned on taking the money out of the pockets of 68,600 children. I think it might have turned on that. If Mr McClay had been upfront with the voters of Rotorua and said that he was going to take money out of the pockets of paper boys and paper girls\u201468,600 of them, according to the regulatory impact statement\u2014then I do not think Mr McClay or a host of other National MPs would be back here today.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000612\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EClearly, this is the most important taxation measure that this Government feels it needs to bring in front of the country. This is a ridiculous piece of legislation. This Government\u2019s Budget is so poor that this is the best that it can do. This is the best that the National Government has got for New Zealand, and it is simply not good enough.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022 data-id=\u00228048259129de41469b4e01feb697bf74\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000613\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228048259129de41469b4e01feb697bf74\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY (National\u2014Rotorua):\u003C/span\u003E Where might one start after that last speech from Grant Robertson? Actually, you know, at the last election the National Party campaigned on a brighter future for paper boys and paper girls. It might be OK for members on the other side of the House to say that at the age of 40 you should still be delivering papers, but the money that we put into education in this Budget will give every single paper boy and paper girl a brighter future in this country. Before the last speaker goes, I just wanted to say that he should not be such a bully when it comes to talking about the hard-working Minister Anne Tolley and the very hard-working member for Taup\u014D, Louise Upston. Together their majorities added up to more than the total number of people who voted for him in the Wellington Central electorate.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000614\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002241146229-4d11-415b-a4ac-f4e2b923e95d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022da582ac69d13444780cb48fa628dc93d\u0022\u003EHon Christopher Finlayson\u003C/span\u003E: And he was third in the party vote.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000615\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b2e66c4f5f044e44b8bb6173668a9ca2\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY\u003C/span\u003E: He was third in the party vote. Well, that is a good start\u2014that is a good start. Welcome back. That is a good start. What happens on this side of the House when we do our maths is you take a majority from this member and a majority from that member, you add them together, and if it was more than the total number\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000616\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a4d25570b2884786ab3b654c3fba48aa\u0022\u003EGrant Robertson\u003C/span\u003E: I seek leave of the House to table the results from two electorates\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000617\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022544ab9b62b014ffa9ba022c2651b31fb\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: No, no\u2014order! The member knows that is not a point of order.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000618\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022847ecae1802943e584e6e31b8e2ce2a5\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY\u003C/span\u003E: And that is their problem with the Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000619\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022222321e112184c8897f967d87252f7b2\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a longstanding tradition in this House that members do not sit in the Prime Minister\u2019s seat unless they have ambitions to be there. I wonder whether that member is showing that ambition now.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000620\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bb31e292de4c4075bdec50fbb9d955dc\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: The member may well be right, and the member on my right has to suffer the consequences.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000621\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a9d07d8ef12746599cc0453aaf009d9d\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY\u003C/span\u003E: I notice that nobody is willing to sit in the seat of the Leader of the Opposition at the moment, and that tells us more about what is going on here tonight. That is the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. When it comes to the Budget, that side is worried about the issues that New Zealanders are not caring about; we are focusing on what is important. What I want to say is that over the dinner break I was invited to go out and make a post-Budget speech and talk to some people\u2014some everyday New Zealanders\u2014about what is important to them. Can I tell you that it is a wonderful place: the Angus Inn Hotel on Waterloo Road in Lower Hutt. There were people lining up to come in to hear the good news about this Budget. One of them asked what the difference is between the Government and the Opposition. I said it was straightforward: we are ambitious and we want to do more for New Zealand; the Opposition wants to borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. Do you know what I found in that Hutt South electorate when I walked outside looking for my car to come back here? There were Greek restaurants all up and down Trevor Mallard\u2019s electorate\u2014all up and down the street. That is all they want to do: make us like those poor countries, those poor people over there in Europe. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000622\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EThis is an ambitious piece of legislation that brings balance to our tax system and that does good things for New Zealand, and I give you a guarantee that the party opposite will vote against it, just like members of the public in New Zealand voted against that party in droves only 6 months ago.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000623\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002225f454486dc6494b8ef9f8ddc437fc12\u0022\u003EDr David Clark\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Speaker.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u002225077e14777d4363b2b7f300c4354f09\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000624\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002225077e14777d4363b2b7f300c4354f09\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Is the member calling?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000625\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d958da8e3e3743b5b439eda1f519dfa1\u0022\u003EDr David Clark\u003C/span\u003E: Yes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000626\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002269ba48a553f8499e96e5d7d7e86cb0a7\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: I call the honourable member David Clark.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u0022bd5d573dab97408885067cc0c28a038f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000627\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022bd5d573dab97408885067cc0c28a038f\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E Mr Speaker\u2014[Interruption] \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000628\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002265ef96e147764ab883851cab595c8990\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I can hardly hear the member who is trying to seek the call. Courtesy is contagious. I call the honourable member David Clark.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000629\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022977cccaf-581d-4f48-924e-32bf6c54a93d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229f637512fac941e89af7394fea8835ef\u0022\u003EHon Anne Tolley\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In fairness, he did not seek the call; you asked him whether he wanted the call, and he said yes. So this side was calling for the vote, in fairness, because no one else in the House had called.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000630\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022eef1c8c53acd4b67b1b7593d47ad0713\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you, thank you. The member has now called.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000631\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022eaad893390a943b6bf62f20d76b57a8b\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you for the call. I was somewhat surprised that the member did not have much more to say about this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. Then again, perhaps I should not be. There really is not too much more that one can say about this bill. It is tinkering. It is the worst kind of tinkering: pinching the money from our paper boys and paper girls around the country, but dressed up as something more. This is a Government that gave tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders not very long ago. We know that in 2010 the wealthiest 10 percent of New Zealanders got 44 percent of the value of the tax cuts. Just 2 percent of the value of those tax cuts went to the bottom 20 percent. That is the Government\u2019s idea of tax change. It has done it, it is all over, that has all happened, and now it is just tinkering. That is really not going to get us back on the right track. We have issues as a country. We have been buying more than we have been building, selling, and exporting. This has been going on for some time. Our country must address the problem that we have with our trade balance, and this Government seems to have no ideas at all.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000632\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe are here under urgency to pass a bill that would rob tax credits from 68,000 children. That is what we are reduced to. That is the base-broadening vision of this country. The base-broadening vision is to pick the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls around the country. Mr Goldsmith seemed to suggest I wanted to keep the student loan scheme situation that was encouraging students to pay off their loans more quickly; I was merely trying to point out that it fitted a pattern of trying to take things away from students. The actual detail of that part of the bill is something that Labour does not oppose, but we were merely pointing out that it fits with a pattern. Mr Dunne himself introduced it not so long ago, as we have just heard from my colleague Mr Grant Robertson, and far from doing a flip-flop, it was so recent it can only be described as a flop. It was not meeting its intended purpose.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000633\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIn my previous opportunity to speak I pointed out that in the regulatory impact statement, which I am now searching for, the point is made that\u2014thank you to my colleague Mr Mallard\u2014businesses that employ only schoolchildren on very low wages, below $2,340 per annum, may have to begin withholding pay-as-you-earn tax from these employees from 1 April 2013. We are talking about the kids who clean after school. We are not just talking about the paper boys and paper girls of this country; we are also talking about those kids doing low-wage jobs to help them get a bit of pocket money, maybe to help out at home, maybe to buy one or two things, or maybe to buy some school books. And the Government is trying to claw that money back. As my colleague Megan Woods said, we can imagine the conversation round the Cabinet table: \u201CHow are we going to broaden that tax base? Why don\u2019t we have a go at the kids on their bikes out delivering newspapers? That\u2019s our big vision\u2014we\u2019re going to go for it.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000634\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe point that I did not make in that previous address was that, actually, what this regulatory impact statement tells us is that there is additional compliance introduced here. Employers are being required not only to pinch from the pockets of kids but to do it at their own expense. Their time and effort is being put on the line to pinch this money from the kids. So not only is it the wrong thing to do but also it is an expensive thing to do. We know that there will be many small businesses operating pamphlet deliveries or whatever that have kids out doing that work, and they too will have an increased overhead as a result of this bill. It is not a bright idea, and not a great way to increase our future and brighten our future; it is already going to drive kids offshore to see that their opportunities are going to be greater in Australia. There will be 50,000 more people leaving the country for Australia every year, there will be 50,000 more people unemployed\u2014this is the record of this Government\u2014and there will be 50,000 more people collecting the unemployment benefit. But also it is going to cost business more. This is National\u2019s big idea, and it is going to cost business more. I ask you: pinching pennies from kids and charging businesses more for the privilege\u2014most business people would be embarrassed by that. I am pretty confident in saying that most business people will think that pinching pocket money from kids is not a good idea. And most business people would think that having to pay for the opportunity to do that is just outrageous. This is just not a good idea. But it does fit with this theme of tinkering with the tax system.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000635\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIf you look at the Government\u2019s tax work programme for this year, you will see that there are some fair objectives, some loopholes that are going to be addressed, and some attempts to do some minor base-broadening here or there, but you will not find inspiration there. If you are going there in the morning to have something to read over your bowl of muesli, then you will be back asleep in it before you know it. We need real, inspirational change if we are going to turn our country round. We need pro-growth tax measures. We need measures that are going to support our exporters. We do not need measures that are going to take the pocket money away from our kids. I cannot say much more about this bill, because there is not much more to say about it. It is tinkering, it is no more than tinkering, and therefore we will oppose it. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022 data-id=\u0022addbec1bde40488b9687b49632df4be1\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000636\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022addbec1bde40488b9687b49632df4be1\u0022\u003EDr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):\u003C/span\u003E This Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, unsurprisingly, reflects the general priorities of the Government\u2019s 2012-13 Budget. Let me in my short time do two things: first, to judge what is in the bill and, more broadly, the Budget as presented this afternoon, and, secondly, to discern what is missing from it. In judging what is in this bill and the Budget, let me compare the National and the Green positions on the stated priorities that provide the overall framework. National\u2019s starting point is the three demons that provide the setting for a zero Budget\u2014one global, one national, and one local. There is the global financial crisis, there is the 2008 national recession, and there is the Christchurch earthquake crisis. These together create a dire situation that justifies a zero Budget, and on top of that was the irresponsible fiscal management of the previous Government. From that the Government justifies fiscal austerity, so that New Zealand avoids the fate of Greece. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000637\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EThe bill proposes to abolish three outdated tax credits, the transitional circumstances credit, the housekeeper credit, and the children\u2019s active income credit, and there are plans to restrict the livestock valuation method for farmers and repeal the 10 percent voluntary repayment bonus in the student loan scheme. Why does the Government have to engage in this kind of tax sleight of hand? Because it judges such legislative changes to be essential to its 2012-13 Budget. There can be no other way it can afford it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000638\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003ESo what are the main components of such a strange Budget? There are four main components to this year\u2019s Budget. First is the goal of sound financial management. With that as a precondition the Government identifies three priorities: economic competitiveness, public sector efficiency, and Christchurch recovery. New Zealand\u2019s outlook, says the finance Minister, \u201Cis more positive than most. We are a food-producing economy [in] a rapidly growing middle class \u2026 region.\u201D Unlike other developed countries New Zealand is going through a \u201Cmoderate adjustment\u201D. So long as the Government sticks to its balanced economic programme we shall pull through. \u201CNew Zealanders have shown \u2026 resilience in challenging times [and this Budget] supports their aspirations for a brighter future.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000639\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003ESo let us compare National and Green policy on these components. First, sound fiscal management. Rather than slash spending or dramatically increase taxes, National chooses to run larger deficits and curtail growth in public spending. The result is the proclaimed ability to stay on target for a Budget surplus by 2015. But giving tax cuts to the richer income earners is not sound financial management. Selling off State-owned assets and borrowing more from overseas is not sound fiscal management. It is a form of fiscal theft. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000640\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EThe alternative Green Budget has sound fiscal management. It recognises what the Government does not: that our national economy is afflicted with a structural imbalance. That imbalance is an overseas-funded private sector debt driven by excessive consumerism, exacerbated by a distorted taxation regime, resulting in a rising current account deficit and an increasing negative net investment position. The Green Budget would rest on alternative forms of both revenue and expenditure that reflect three values: sustainability, resilience, and equity. The revenue would rest on a capital gains tax, a resource rental on water, increased mining royalties, a temporary levy for Christchurch, a phase-out of emissions trading scheme subsidisation with a real price on carbon, savings off the absurd roads projects, and increased revenue from a higher minimum wage. Green fiscal expenditure would include reprioritised items, ending child poverty, reinstating training incentives, initiatives for river clean-up, new social housing, extended home insulation, and reforestation initiatives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000641\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EConsider National\u2019s first priority: economic competitiveness. The Green Party agrees that economic competence, rather than a ruthless competitive efficiency, is a sound national goal, but how much, and how is it to be paid? With National having sold off the country\u2019s State assets to the tune of some $6 billion, it will put $385 million of new investment in research, science, and innovation. The alternative Green Budget would apply from the savings within its fiscally neutral Budget\u2014some $1 billion over the next 3 years\u2014which is roughly comparable in amount to National\u2019s plans, but the way of funding it is different. Green taxation reform would be specifically dedicated to green technology. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000642\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EConsider National\u2019s second priority: public sector efficiency. Of course this is a national goal shared probably by all parties in this House, but the difference is over what it means. National is amending the State Sector Act, the Public Finance Act, and the Crown Entities Act. It will reduce long-term welfare dependency, support vulnerable children, boost skills and employment, reduce crime, and improve interaction with government, according to its Budget speech this afternoon. The Green Budget already has plans for bringing 100,000 children out of poverty and identifies $100 million over 3 years for a start-up fund for cleantech small to medium sized enterprises. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000643\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EConsider National\u2019s third priority: Canterbury earthquake recovery. National has committed $5.5 billion over 6 years, which is about $1 billion a year. The funding has helped in the rebuilding of 75 percent of the 1,000 buildings that require demolition, some 13,000 repair jobs have been generated, and 5,000 of the 7,000 homeowners have accepted the purchase offer. So that is some modest progress, though it has not been without pain and not without continuing controversy. But the main problem is how to fund it, because National is funding this through overseas borrowing. Green funding would be a national levy that would generate $5 billion over the next 5 years\u2014also about $1 billion a year. This would avoid the need for further overseas borrowing and greater national debt, and the Government prides itself on fiscal prudence. That fiscal prudence is a sick joke. It is a recipe for social inequality and political instability. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000644\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EFinally, let us recognise what is not in this Budget, which requires the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. What are the omissions? What is missing in the broader recognition of the true global situation? There is no recognition of a global ecological overshoot\u2014a 50 percent overshoot\u2014with the current human population of 7 billion and the associated resource depletion and biosecurity loss. There is no recognition of the projected growth in human population from 7 billion to 9 billion over the next four decades, a 28 percent increase that will also increase the ecological overshoot beyond the 50 percent obtaining at present. It ignores the critical part of that overshoot: the increase in carbon emissions, which will also increase the ecological overshoot beyond the 50 percent obtaining. And it will cause serious and possibly catastrophic climate change, which in turn will cause social instability. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000645\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EThis bill, as part of the Budget, is seeking an illusory national redemption in a dysfunctional global framework. As the global economy deteriorates, the New Zealand Government believes its destiny lies in being more competitive on neoliberal terms. As we head towards the cliff, the Government presses down on the accelerator. The global framework is dysfunctional, because we focus on the global economy only and regard the ecology as external collateral damage to be remedied. We fail to realise that the economy is part of the ecology and that the global situation will be rectified only if ecological economics replaces the neoclassical economic framework as the guideline for macro policy by New Zealand. For these reasons, the Green Party will be opposing this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022 data-id=\u002288eec93df9d74dc3a13f1f7b8bea256d\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000646\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002288eec93df9d74dc3a13f1f7b8bea256d\u0022\u003EPAUL GOLDSMITH (National):\u003C/span\u003E I would like to apologise to the previous speaker, Kennedy Graham, for the noise from my jeers. He might be rather dull, but he is very earnest, and I think we should pay him more respect because he is very earnest. I was kind of interested to find out his solution. He was talking about the growth of the human population and I wanted to know what his solution to that problem was going to be, but he did not get on to that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000647\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003EWe have had a lot of hot air from the other side about tinkering in this Budget. What those members do not seem to understand is that this Government, in the 2010 Budget, got the tax settings of this country in good shape. We did away with the ridiculous gap between the top income tax rate and the trust rate and shifted the weight of the tax from work to spending. That was the whole point\u2014from income tax to GST. That has helped encourage the significant shift we have had towards saving, and the progress that we have made. This Budget from this Government is all about consistency. It is about strong, stable Government, and continuing on a path that we set out after the election in 2008, and consolidated in the important Budget of 2010.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000648\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003EThis bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, is about the maintenance of the tax system. It is about plugging occasional loopholes and it is about clearing up anachronistic old taxes that cost more to administer than they bring in. I think this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, should be read a second time, and I fully commend it to the House. Thank you very much.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u0022534413f457074e779b2387c67edec6f1\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000649\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022534413f457074e779b2387c67edec6f1\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E It is no wonder that the Government members are taking such short calls this evening and have done so for much of the day, because their short calls reflect the size of these bills that we are presented with and the amount of information that they contain. Members sitting on the other side of the House must be embarrassed to be fronting with these sorts of documents.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000650\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EIf you look at them, you see they cover the likes of taxation on children. I never thought in my lifetime I would read in the explanatory note of a bill that \u201CSection LC3 provides for a tax credit for children.\u201D and that section LC3 is repealed. Is that not sad reading in this House? The explanatory note of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill mentions a tax credit for children, which is repealed. In the same piece of paper, in respect to the student loan scheme, the 10 percent voluntary repayment bonus to try to encourage students to get on top of their loans, to try to encourage them to put more money into their loans and get them paid off, is being taken away. No wonder today in Auckland there are students marching in the streets. Students are marching in the streets because, again, they are being hard done by.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000651\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ETomorrow I would not be surprised if farmers were marching in Dipton as well, because down in Dipton the farmers will probably be disappointed with the abolition of changes to the herd valuation scheme. Again you wonder whether this Government just wants to offend everybody. Do Government members want to offend everyone? They are obviously going to offend a lot of their farmer friends. They have obviously written off the fact that students may as well just get on planes and disappear overseas to get away from their student loans. They obviously want to offend the up-and-coming younger generation who are trying to save some pocket money and maybe get their taxes back. They want to offend them, as well. There are not many people at the moment they do not want to offend. The only people they seem to support are the ones whom 2 years ago they gave huge tax credits to. You start to wonder in this House how it is that 2 years ago such massive tax credits\u2014billions of dollars\u2014were given to their mates, their wealthy mates, and 2 years later they are going after the children of this country, they are going after the students of this country, they are going after minor adjustments to farming requirements, and they are going after absolute trivia.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000652\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EIt is no wonder that today there are so many reports coming out in the media saying how disappointed the nation is in this Budget. The Budget has come from the Minister Bill English, who learnt from Ruth Richardson\u2019s \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D, and today he has delivered the \u201Cmini-me of all Budgets\u201D. This is the \u201Cpick a pocket or two Budget\u201D where basically he is out to get the last nickel and dime\u2014the last nickel and dime from wherever he can scrape it. There is no vision in this Budget. There is no vision at all.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000653\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EI have come from a background of 30 years in exports, and I can tell you this is so disappointing for exporters. In the good old days there were incentives for exporters to get out there and earn export dollars for New Zealand, to bring more dollars home, and to put this country on the world map. Where are the tax incentives for exporters to be out there? There are none. There is nothing. There is nothing there to help our companies get offshore and make taxes. There is nothing there. And at the same time we are getting statements from the likes of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association today saying: \u201CThe \u2026 fundamental problems, such as a lack of export growth, have once again gone ignored.\u201D The manufacturers and exporters are saying they have gone ignored. At the same time, as I mentioned earlier in the House, today there are the appalling trade statistics that we are seeing. The April statistics show that we are 17 percent down on the same time last year for our exports\u201417 percent down. Our members on the National benches over there just sit there and say \u201CWhat a wonderful Budget. Aren\u2019t we producing great results?\u201D, while our exports are down, while our Manufacturers and Exporters Association is saying this is an appallingly poor Budget, and while the online New Zealand Herald is making statements such as this is \u201CA most forgettable (and dull) Budget\u201D. Quite honestly, this Government should be embarrassed.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000654\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EBut it all boils down to, basically, the Government members having no vision. It is very clear they have no vision. We are seeing more and more in this House that this Government is running out of ideas, and so early into the second term of a Government that it is almost unheard of. You would expect a third-term Government to start running out of ideas, or maybe a fourth-term Government, but not one only 6 months into a second term to be already running out of ideas and repeating the same old promises from the Budget of 2011 and the same old promises from the Budget of 2010\u2014and none of those promises came true. And now again they trundle out the same sorts of promises, only to know in their hearts\u2014if they put hand on heart, they know\u2014that half of what they have printed in these documents is incorrect in terms of where we will be in 12 months\u2019 time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000655\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThey know that last year they promised 4 point something percent growth and we got 1.1 percent. You know, they promised more jobs and now we have got 50,000 more unemployed. John Key, when he was Leader of the Opposition, promised that the exodus to Australia, which was only at 35,000 people a year, would stop. We heard today that he said that the 35,000 people sitting in Westpac Stadium represented those who left for Australia a year. Now we are heading towards 50,000 or 60,000 a year. So 3 years later, now that he is the Prime Minister, he must be absolutely embarrassed by the statements he made when he was Leader of the Opposition that he would stop all that. He has stopped nothing. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000656\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThe situation is getting worse and the people of New Zealand are starting to wake up to it. I was out on the streets in North Shore last week and I was surprised. I was getting signatures for the petition to keep our assets and I was surprised to have National voters coming up and saying: \u201CPlease let me sign the petition.\u201D They were even saying: \u201CI\u2019m a National voter, and I have been a National voter, but I am pleased to sign this thing. Boy, am I getting pretty disgruntled with this Government, and I won\u2019t be voting for them again.\u201D National voters in a blue ribbon seat like North Shore\u2014Maggie Barry over there knows that it is blue ribbon\u2014are coming up and saying \u201CWe won\u2019t be voting for National again. They are selling us down the river.\u201D And it is not down the river on a cabbage boat. It is not down the river on a cabbage boat. It is absolutely down the river, well and truly.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000657\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWe have been the witnesses of, yet again, an appalling Budget today. This country is looking for growth, it is looking for export drive, it is looking for lifting our performance internationally, and we are not doing that. This is like the Skycity conference centre\u2014this is looking inwards. This is concrete bunker stuff, looking inwards. This Government is looking inwards on itself, not looking outwards to expand our opportunities internationally on the export market and globally. This is all about cut, cut, and more cut. When you run out of things to cut you start cutting into the children of this country. Quite frankly, I think the Minister of Finance will not sleep well tonight. He will probably have dreams about Ruth Richardson from 20 years ago. He will be dreaming about Ruth and the \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D and saying: \u201CMy God! I\u2019ve done it all over again. I\u2019ve brought in another failure of a Budget.\u201D In 20 years\u2019 time people will look back and say: \u201CMy goodness, National made a huge mistake in 2012, made a huge mistake in 1991. Why did the people of this country allow that to happen?\u201D. New Zealand First will certainly continue to oppose this Budget. We will stand for growth in the economy, growth in our international markets, growth in job opportunities, and growth in opportunities for our young people. We will not be a \u201CFagin Government\u201D like this Government is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022 data-id=\u0022a9b1993645144774b527167f332f369b\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000658\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a9b1993645144774b527167f332f369b\u0022\u003EDAVID BENNETT (National\u2014Hamilton East):\u003C/span\u003E Today we have a great Budget for New Zealand and New Zealanders. It is a Budget that sets up the future for this country going forward, and it is a Budget that has the right signals and incentives. It is a Budget that the people wanted and they got. But all Opposition members can do in this House tonight is talk about students and children losing some tax credits. They cannot talk about the big things that will grow an economy. They do not understand what the people out there actually want. People want stability.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000659\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a8cb56a367da4b94a087de3b9fd9cdc1\u0022\u003EHon Clayton Cosgrove\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just raise the point that the member is speaking rather loudly, and Mr Finlayson is asleep or maybe\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000660\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002212a6d125f7a1498290d81b213c35f4da\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: No, the member will be seated. That is not a point of order and the member knows it. He has been here a long time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000661\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022444e5407e5844634928a2fd9becaada0\u0022\u003EDAVID BENNETT\u003C/span\u003E: For new members, that is the Clayton Cosgrove trick. When he thinks that a speech is going the wrong way for his party, he tries to raise points of order.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000662\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022\u003ELabour members are scared because they know they have got it wrong. They have gone out to the public, and what will the public think tomorrow? They will think that the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party are not interested in what people are going through out there. They are not interested in getting money on the table so that people can pay their mortgages. They are not interested in people having jobs tomorrow. They are not interested in building a stronger community that will give people that brighter future. All they are interested in is picking holes and\u2014what is it\u2014nickel-and-diming. Well, if that is all you can find wrong in this Budget, then there is not much to worry about. This is a good Budget. It sets a good springboard for the New Zealand economy going forward. We look forward to it going through this Parliament tonight.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000663\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022\u003EI thought it was quite interesting to hear from the New Zealand First Party that we should not look inward. For the New Zealand First Party of all parties to talk about not looking inward! This is a Budget for New Zealanders, for the right time and the right place. It has been accepted and supported by the public, because they understand what is needed this time. We look forward to the success of this Budget building that stronger economy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022 data-id=\u00225b0590c6ee9d475ba452c674a39d5c26\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000664\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225b0590c6ee9d475ba452c674a39d5c26\u0022\u003EANDREW LITTLE (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E Today has been a day of fantasyland in this House. This has not been a Budget about New Zealand and its future. This has not been a Budget about growth. This has been a Budget about picking away at the most trivial issues in this country. This is not a Budget for growth and it certainly is not, as the last speaker said, a Budget for the people. It has been a Budget for a very small number of people, but not for the people who are struggling and hurting in this country today. This has not been a Budget to grow the economy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000665\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003ELet us recall what the challenges are that we have at the moment. So we have a country where the net Crown debt is about $50 billion. We have a Budget that has a deficit now, for the financial year that we are talking about, of $9 billion. We are steadily heading towards a net Crown debt of over $70 billion. What do we have? We have the removal of a tax credit for 68,000 kids, which is going to raise $14 million. It will raise $14 million, but the problem is $70 billion big. This is not a Government that is taking this country and this economy seriously. It is a waste of time. We have got a country with the slowest growth ever, with wage growth stagnant, and with a real economy that simply is not working\u2014and getting smaller. We have a Government whose own projections are showing an economy in crisis. What does the Government want to do? It cuts a tax credit worth $14 million. I think we could have expected better. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000666\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EWe were entitled to expect the Budget to talk about the people on the street. The New Zealand Herald\u2014that balanced, august piece of journalism in this country\u2014is now reporting that this is a Budget that has either disappointed or not even registered the interest of 70 percent of New Zealanders. That is how this Budget has attracted the attention of New Zealand. It is a Budget that has done nothing, by a do-nothing Government. The New Zealand Herald described it this morning, in anticipation, as \u201CThe Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock\u201D Budget\u2014that great piece of poetry by T S Eliot. It was described that way because that poem describes eking out, coffee spoon by coffee spoon. There is another line in that poem that says:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000667\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EI grow old \u2026 I grow old \u2026 \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000668\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EI shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled \u2026  \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000669\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EDo I dare to eat a peach? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000670\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThis is a Budget about trivialities; this is a Budget about trivialities. This is a Government whose Ministers and whose members could not care about what is happening to people who are struggling, who do not get pay increases, who are struggling to make ends meet. All the Government is concerned about is taking a bit of extra money off the kids, out of their pockets, taking their pocket money, and making it harder for everyone. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000671\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThe Government\u2019s only strategy, apart from reducing Government revenue and increasing its debt, is to sell off the revenue-generating assets that it owns. It is selling the revenue-generating assets that it owns. Well, that is the big strategy. When I look at the practices of the Tory rich\u2014[Interruption] \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000672\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022263d478cca004d048066f275ba431d8e\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member, but I would like to refer the members on my right and on my left to Speakers\u2019 ruling 60/5 about interjections.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000673\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022abd07553e80c431e93e0432dfffd34b9\u0022\u003EANDREW LITTLE\u003C/span\u003E: I could barely hear myself speak. The greatest travesty of this Government, and there are many of them, let us face it, but the greatest travesty just today is its reaffirmation of a policy that is about continuing the bankrupt policies for this country. So now it wants to take the great blue-chip revenue-generating assets of the country and it is going to proceed down the path of selling them. The Government has now introduced this new fund that it is going to put them into. So having told the public it is going to sell these assets and pay down some debt, now it has a new fund that the sort of best guess of $5 billion, or $6 billion, or $7 billion is going to go into. We are now going to repaint the schools and upgrade the hospitals. There is not a single revenue-generating asset amongst them. So we will destroy the balance sheet, we will lose the revenue, and we will be no better off. What a crooked Government. What a crooked thing to tell the people of New Zealand when we are looking for some hope and looking for some vision. This Budget offers neither. It offers nothing else. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000674\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThe only other revenue-generating measure the Government has is to increase the price of smokes. It will put the price of smokes up, because this is a Government that is about to go up in smoke. It will do that, but it will not raise much revenue. Sure, people will stop smoking and it might help the health statistics a little bit, but it is not going to fix the core problem. This Government does not have an idea about investing in productive activity and investing in the productive investment sector to get real growth, to get jobs\u2014high-skilled jobs, high-wage jobs\u2014that will make a difference to people and give them a chance to get ahead. The Government is interested in the low-value jobs. It does not mind when foreign direct investment is about simply substituting for investments we have already got and promoting and encouraging low-value jobs. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000675\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003ELabour is a party that wants to do the opposite\u2014encourage investment and good skilled and high-skilled good jobs, and increase the wage base. We do not want to see good New Zealand workers going overseas. This Budget and these measures are about driving more Kiwis offshore. Can we please have a Government that leaves the kids alone, and leaves their pocket money alone? When it comes to them being in the classroom, leave them with their good quality teachers. Do not jam more kids in the classroom, put the teachers under more stress, and make it harder for them. That is not going to help anybody. That is not part of the high-wage, high-skill economy; that is the old way. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThis is a tired old Government, and it is in only its second term. It is a tired old Government with no new ideas but to fleece the kids, make it harder for the kids, and harder for their families. What a travesty. What a tragedy. [Interruption] And they know it\u2014and they know it. Members opposite sit in the back rows and they run out of words because they have no arguments to defend it; they have no arguments to defend it. This is not a great day. They sit there and cheer on the ringmaster, but the rest of us know that the joke is on us. They are the clowns and we are meant to laugh, but the joke is on the rest of New Zealand. The joke is on the rest of New Zealand, because this is a Government that has introduced a zero Budget that will take us nowhere. We are debating a zero bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, like the finance Minister; a zero bill, part of a zero Budget, that will take us absolutely nowhere, and members opposite know it. They know it, because the more I remind them of it, the louder they get, and they hate it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000677\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EWell, this is not good, and we will debate every measure, because it is important that every New Zealander knows\u2014the 70 percent who are disappointed in it or do not even know about it will know\u2014that this Government has gone off them, does not care about them, will take the money out of their kids\u2019 back pockets, will jam more kids in the classrooms, take away their teachers, reduce the skills of their teachers, and we will just wave to more good Kiwis as they go to the airports, pay their departure taxes, and take the poisoned fruit into Australia, because we do not have any biosecurity here; we will wave them goodbye. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000678\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThat is the tragedy for New Zealand: a Government that offers no hope, no real measures, and nothing for the working Kiwi. They are looking hard, because the thing about this side of the House is that we rub shoulders with them. They are looking for something better, and they are looking to Labour and the parties of the Opposition. They say: \u201CYou parties offer us real hope. We don\u2019t want the party of the rich any more, taking money out of our kids\u2019 pockets. We don\u2019t want the party of the rich doing down our teachers and jamming more kids in the classrooms. We want something better.\u201D They will get it better. We will have this debate, and we will work to make this country a better place, where kids can grow up in confidence. They will know that when they do their paper rounds and do the gardening and mow the lawns for the old ladies, they will reap the benefits and the rewards of the labour, and they will learn what being good citizens is about, unlike the members opposite. We will have that debate, and we will remind New Zealand that we offer a better chance, a better hope, and a better country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022c601a06ca8b34ab49822f436fbf02d71\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000679\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c601a06ca8b34ab49822f436fbf02d71\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I just remind members, regarding interjections, that running commentaries are out of order. Interjections are to be rare and reasonable. I ask members to have a look at Speakers\u2019 ruling 60/5(1), (2), (3), and (4). You might learn something. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022 data-id=\u0022a7e0a83b75004775a97effa27cca29b6\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000680\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a7e0a83b75004775a97effa27cca29b6\u0022\u003EMAGGIE BARRY (National\u2014North Shore):\u003C/span\u003E I must say to my own people on this side of the House that there is a lot we can learn from members opposite about trivia, about going up in smoke\u2014or do they inhale it? What manner of nonsense have we heard from these people? What a ridiculous notion. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000681\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EI am a fan of recycling; this is taking it too far. We saw the unedifying spectacle of one of the members for Dunedin reading the same speech twice. Fortunately his colleagues came up to him and they gave him notes to help him out. It was pretty much a waste of time, though. We are looking at Groundhog Day over here. They are recycling the most trivial of notions and making them work. We saw the unedifying spectacle of the list member of Parliament for North Shore roaming around the streets of Takapuna, pestering the locals\u2014and the foliage, possibly, as well\u2014and annoying people about things that had no relevance at all, and then bringing it into a debate about taxation. I guess largesse takes on whole new definitions when it comes to their interpretation of speaking to a bill, but truly the trivia and the nonsense\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000682\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022163d0b68-eb0e-4094-9bed-99e184f063e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002280c5125f56544b50be89994c02246045\u0022\u003EJami-Lee Ross\u003C/span\u003E: What about the little man with the big voice?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000683\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002219139eedc3d14d1da639867404f59b45\u0022\u003EMAGGIE BARRY\u003C/span\u003E: The little man with the big voice? Stuart Little? Yeah, the mouse that roared\u2014yeah, absolutely. But, I mean, the braying and the nonsense that we are getting from the other side of the House does not detract from the purpose. It does not detract from the fact that this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill is an excellent bill, and it is a sensational Budget. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000684\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EThis is a day to be proud to be in the National ranks. We are doing well. We have an excellent taxation measure, meticulously worked through, as I said earlier, by the Minister of Revenue, Peter Dunne, rather than dwelling on the minutiae of the occasional piece of stuff that members opposite pick up. They have not got the intellectual rigour to actually examine what he has pulled up, but what we are doing is examining the detail of it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000685\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EThis is a good bill. I commend it to the House, and I am sure it will get through this very evening. Thank you. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022ced4dca77f6040a8b3cb9678f71ce351\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000686\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ced4dca77f6040a8b3cb9678f71ce351\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Just before I call the honourable member, I wish to advise members that this is a split call. For the speakers, they will get a bell with 1 minute to go. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022 data-id=\u002281072ed22e5544f3a7f523da84db9b98\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000687\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002281072ed22e5544f3a7f523da84db9b98\u0022\u003EHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour\u2014New Lynn):\u003C/span\u003E The test of a good Budget is not only what is in it but also what is not in it. Here we are in urgency, we are debating, but we have deferred the main Budget debate. We are taking away the main select committee process, and this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, is retrospective. What could be so important that we are doing all those things? I know: we are picking the pockets of paper boys\u2014picking the pockets of paper boys\u2014and that is the best this dreary Government can come up with. You know, it would be laughable if it was not so sad. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000688\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EIs this the secret base-broadening measure that Bill English and John Key were talking about, the measure that would bring fairness to the tax system, the measure that got the journos thinking they were going to do a capital gains tax after all? No, no; nobody guessed. Penny-pinching pickpocketing of paper boys\u2014that was the big, deep dark Budget secret. Were they going to do something brave like, I do not know, reinstate capital gains tax or research and development tax credits that would turn our companies into engines of innovation? Were they going to do that? Nope, they are going to pick the pockets of paper boys. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000689\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EYou know, it is laughable\u2014because it can only be a joke\u2014that the Government\u2019s top priority was retrospectively pinching pocket money from our children: 68,000 children lose their pocket money because this is the Government\u2019s top priority on Budget night. It suspended the Budget debate so we can pickpocket our kids. But I think it is actually quite sad. Sad because it is a lost opportunity, and sad because of all the New Zealand families that are working hard, playing by the rules, and trying to get ahead, and this Government is absent without leave, absent on the job. It ought to be lifting the standard of living for New Zealanders, instead of picking the pockets of paper boys. But are they doing it? No. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000690\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EWhere is the vision in this Budget? There is not one. It is a zero Budget, by the Government\u2019s own admission: zero vision, zero hope, zero plan, zero new exports, zero new jobs, and zero future. And that is why 50,000 New Zealanders a year, 1,000 a week, are heading for the airport departure lounge, because they have given up on John Key\u2019s National Government, and, sadly, given up on their homeland. How many grandparents do we know around the country who are worried that their grandchildren are going to be brought up in a country not their own because these clowns think the top priority is taking pocket money off paper boys? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000691\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EIt is just so ludicrous, is it not? We suspended the Budget debate to take pocket money off children. That is going to turn the boat round, and members opposite are squirming. They are squirming in their seats. Mr Bennett with his three dairy farms, sitting pretty; he knows that this is not going to turn the boat round. The \u201Cmember for Vodafone\u201D, Mr Lotu-Iiga; he knows it is not going to turn the boat round. Mr Ryall, sitting there, knows he has not given the health system enough to keep going. He knows people are going to get sick and die because of this Budget, yet the best they can do on Budget night is pinch the penny pocket money off paper boys\u2014pinch the pocket money off paper boys. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000692\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EJohn Key continues to overpromise and under-deliver. Every year growth is just around the corner, every year there are going to be 70,000 new jobs, except not this year. This year the Government has finally admitted the truth: there are not going to be that many jobs. This year, yet again, it has had to push back the growth, because it is not happening. It is not happening because Christchurch is too slow, it is not happening because there is no growth plan\u2014it is not happening. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000693\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EThe Government trumpets science and innovation in this Budget. Megan Woods knows that this was the big new spend. Do you know what? The Government took away three times more out of economic development than it put into science. It took away $120 million out of economic development and put $40 million a year into science, and that is supposed to be vision. Here is a so-called pro-growth Government that is killing off the Ministry of Economic Development, building a new Titanic for Steven Joyce, and pinching the pocket money off paper boys as its top priority. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002269dfdffa-4227-42b6-875a-fc8033bc25cc\u0022 data-id=\u0022b8e354d7e69c483da828d63c95fd3f91\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000694\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002269dfdffa-4227-42b6-875a-fc8033bc25cc\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b8e354d7e69c483da828d63c95fd3f91\u0022\u003EJAN LOGIE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E This is my first Budget as a new MP, and I would like to take just a moment to talk about how deeply strange I am finding it. It is quite interesting that we have suspended debate on the Budget, and just before 5 p.m. tonight we were told that the Government would be introducing three bills into the House relating to the Budget. The Opposition parties were given a copy of this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, at 4.45 p.m. Labour, at least, was required to speak on this bill just after 5 p.m., and the Greens, you know, we had a bit more time. I know I am a political na\u00EFf, but this does not seem like democracy to me. I thought, you know, in that idealistic view, that we would have bills, and we would consider them, and we would debate them on the content, and we would come to a common understanding. I know it is na\u00EFve, but that is just how it is. I have to say I am disappointed. I am disappointed in the process of democracy that I am seeing displayed tonight. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000695\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002269dfdffa-4227-42b6-875a-fc8033bc25cc\u0022\u003EI would like to speak tonight briefly about a couple of points in the bill: the abolition of the transitional circumstances tax credit\u2014also known as the income under $9,880 tax credit\u2014and the repeal of the 10 percent voluntary repayment bonus for student loans. But before I get to those specific points, I would also like to take just a moment to talk about Budgets and the economy. So much of the commentary that I have heard around this Budget has been about the importance of the economy, as if the economy was something in itself, and something that was worth pursuing for itself, whereas, in actual fact, although the Greens obviously have a very clear vision of how to grow our economy, the point of the economy is to serve our people and our environment. The economy has no purpose in itself, beyond serving our people. Part of the tragedy of traditional economics is that it has made our lives and our environment into an abstract theory that enables almost sociopathic behaviours to result from the practices. All too often people\u2019s lives, and the impacts of these decisions on people\u2019s lives, are lost. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000696\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002269dfdffa-4227-42b6-875a-fc8033bc25cc\u0022\u003EI would now like to talk a little bit about the experiences that people have that are related to these changes. I would like to talk a bit about a mother I met recently, who, when her daughter complained about getting stones and grass in her shoes because she had holes in them, had to tell her: \u201CDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019ll make you run faster.\u201D because she could not afford to get her kid new shoes. These are the people whom this Government is taking money from. I would like to talk about another woman I met, whose abusive ex-partner took all of her furniture when he left. Work and Income refused her $15 for a chair from the Salvation Army so that an elderly aunt could visit her in her home. These are the people whom this Government is taking money from. The children who are living in cold, damp houses who are getting sick and are ending up in hospital\u2014we are paying for that because we are so abstracted from the concept of what it means to be connected to our fellow human beings that we allow these kinds of things to happen. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000697\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002269dfdffa-4227-42b6-875a-fc8033bc25cc\u0022\u003EAlso, with the student loan aspect of this bill, I think there has been a picture created that students are the ones out drinking, so getting just a bit tough on them and increasing the repayments of the graduates is going to be a good thing. Well, actually, 40 percent of those with student debts are couples aged between 18 and 24 with children, and about 30 percent of those with student debts are between 25 and 34. This group is already shouldering a completely unreasonable burden, and they really feel as if this is an intergenerational attack on them by this Government. It is hard to see how it is not. Most of the people in this Government managed to get the largesse of a free education, and now they are pulling it away from the next generation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022 data-id=\u0022a0de7140412a4202b849eb8a34ef6cb1\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000698\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a0de7140412a4202b849eb8a34ef6cb1\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National\u2014Maungakiekie):\u003C/span\u003E It is an honour to speak on this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. I just want to bring the debate back to the bill and talk about the benefits of this bill. What this is is an omnibus bill. It deals with livestock valuation rules, and the changes to those will bring about over $184 million over 4 years in savings. It will also remove three tax credits that are no longer fit for purpose, which the Hon Peter Dunne has referred to, and it cancels the student loan repayment incentive scheme, which will save $12 million a year. So what does that mean? Well, added up it equals $349 million over the next 4 years. That is right\u2014$349 million over 4 years. And why is that important? Well, it is important because it funds the early childhood education of our children. It is important because it will build new hospitals and new roads for those of us who want to get on with our lives. It is important because this Government is creating an environment and a framework for job growth, for export growth, and for opportunities. It is important because those people out there who want to work will work, with some of our welfare reforms. So I support this bill because this bill actually provides for a better future for our children, our communities, and this country. I support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00228bb2338c43b14b97a934e6cef38c53b5\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill be now read a second time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a second time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000699\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00220e5da372e6094d4d93e5aa908d2534dd\u0022\u003EIn Committee\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000700\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022cd8f2486798f4b3994cc6a0a7829aa3b\u0022\u003EPart 1  Amendments to Income Tax Act 2007\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022 data-id=\u0022606d5d6609d54c56b829d0dacf9e4be5\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000701\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022606d5d6609d54c56b829d0dacf9e4be5\u0022\u003EJACINDA ARDERN (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E It is my pleasure to stand and give a contribution during the Committee stage of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. I do so with a strange sense of irony. I started this afternoon at a protest on the forecourt that was led by people who were protesting on behalf of children in New Zealand. At that time they were protesting on their behalf to try to keep those children\u2019s assets. By \u201Cassets\u201D at that point in time they of course meant a majority share in our power companies, probably not realising that actually the attack on their assets was a little more direct than that. In fact, it was going directly to their back pockets. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000702\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EI want to explore that, because we are debating Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, which goes directly to the issue of exemptions that relate to minors, and, in fact, to slightly above minors. I want to discuss that in a little more detail also. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000703\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EPart of me also wonders whether or not this is part of the Government\u2019s attempt to try to educate children in the area of financial literacy, because any under-18-year-old is now going to need to be aware of where their earnings sit, to see whether or not they are eligible for exemptions. But let us get into that in a little more detail. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000704\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EPart 1 relates to the children\u2019s active income tax credit. I wonder whether most New Zealanders knew such a thing existed. The Government is stating in its general policy statement that these tax credits, along with others, which we will discuss with my other colleagues, are being abolished as \u201Cthey are fiscally expensive but have long since ceased to have a strong policy justification.\u201D It goes on to state that \u201Ca new exemption is created for children, using the same eligibility criteria as for the abolished credit.\u201D I find that there is a slight contradiction in the general policy statement, because it goes on to state: \u201CThis new rule aligns more closely with the original objective of the children\u2019s active income tax credit: reducing compliance costs for children by not forcing them to file income tax returns for small amounts of income.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000705\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EFirst of all, I would not mind the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, sharing with us how many tax returns are involved in this particular area. How many children are affected, who would have been filing these income tax credits for such small amounts of money? Secondly, if it really was about saving them compliance costs, why would this change alone be generating revenue for the Government of $14 million? This is not about trying to reduce bureaucracy for children. This is about trying to increase revenue for the Government from our most vulnerable\u2014from our most vulnerable. This is truly a \u201Cpaper boy Budget\u201D, and it is an absolute disgrace that we have got to that level of desperation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000706\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EBut let us dig into this a little bit more deeply, because I want to explore where the exemption level now lies, as set out in Part 1. Basically it says that a child earning over $2,340 of such income is required to pay tax on every dollar of that income. So $2,340\u2014what does that mean if we were to distil it down for a paper run, for instance? I am sure the members on that side of the Chamber have not done this level of research in their break, so I am very happy to share this with you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000707\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e7954c379bf844deaeda71f4054f9319\u0022\u003EPeseta Sam Lotu-Iiga\u003C/span\u003E: Share it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000708\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220bb76105ed0044cfa0aee51b559e928e\u0022\u003EJACINDA ARDERN\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Lotu-Iiga, I can see you listening intently. From the brief research I have had an opportunity to conduct, I can tell you that one paper run for a child of, say, 100 houses will generate an income for that child of roughly $16 per week. If you increase that to delivering to, say, 300 houses for your poor paper-run boy or girl, you would immediately be over $45 a week, which is where the threshold the Government has now set for them lies. So basically if a paper boy or girl delivers to 300 houses or more, they are going to now be \u201Crequired to pay tax on every dollar of that income\u201D, and that is how this Government is generating $14 million in revenue in its desperate \u201Cpaper boy Budget\u201D. It is an absolute disgrace that this aspirational Government is digging\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u00228fc5c554bc4e40248cee0c55fb1b9b28\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000709\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228fc5c554bc4e40248cee0c55fb1b9b28\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue):\u003C/span\u003E I think it would be helpful at the outset just to go through what actually is happening here in Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. It is very simple and straightforward, and it does not necessitate the type of hype that is being generated on the other side. The tax credit for the active income of children was introduced, as I said earlier, in 1978, and it was done so to reduce the compliance costs of employing children on a part-time basis. What it meant then was that employers with low annual salaries did not need to withhold PAYE in respect of those children. The credit now serves that purpose very rarely, because most employers prefer to apply their normal payroll systems, including deducting PAYE, to all of their employees. The credit is now mostly claimed by a child who files a tax return at the end of the year, which means that because the original credit was designed to reduce compliance costs, it is no longer achieving that goal and it is actually adding to the compliance costs of those people because they are required to now file a return. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000710\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003ELet me go through the limited exemption that is being introduced in this particular provision. I want to say this very clearly to members because it is quite important and it is being misrepresented. Children do not need to pay tax on up to $2,340 of income that is not taxed at source. So that is money for mowing the neighbour\u2019s lawns, babysitting, and those sorts of things. The tax exemption does not apply to income on which tax has already been paid, such as salary and wages or interest. Well, that is unlikely to be a major calculation in this respect. If the child earns more than $2,340 from income that is not taxed at source, then the exemption does not apply to any of the income because they would have to pay tax on the full amount. So we are dealing with a very specific issue here. It does not amount to taxing the paper boys. Previous speakers have raised the question of the 68,600 people, or children, really, who are allegedly affected. They are the people who are in the category of being able to make the claim. We do not have information on the actual numbers of people involved. We know that the average amount of the credit paid is $240. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000711\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EDr Clark earlier in the second reading debate quoted from the regulatory impact statement. Unfortunately, his quote was selective. He talked about\u2014[Interruption] I think it was on page 3. He spoke about the fact that there could be compliance cost implications for a number of employers. But what he failed to point out was the following sentence, which is on page 1, the fifth paragraph: \u201CWe expect that very few employers would be in this situation,\u201D So here is Dr Clark getting up and saying that this is an outrage because we are now going to have a number of employers having to deduct income from children working for them on very low wages, but he did not go on to read the next bit of the same statement: \u201CWe expect that very few employers would be in this situation,\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000712\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWhat this measure is about, and the other measures in this part are about, is changing and getting rid of a number of small tax credits that have long outlived their usefulness. What members of the Opposition are really saying tonight in opposing this is that they actually think we should keep these things on the books, even if they are being misrepresented and distorted. If we are giving up around $350 million to $400 million in revenue over a 4-year period to do so, their attitude is \u201Cso be it\u201D. What does it matter? It is only money. It comes and goes. It is on the tree that they have, the tree that they get it from. This is about responsible Government. It is about making the tax system work the way it was intended, and there should not be any more debate about it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000713\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228320e1045102451c834db09ccc687148\u0022\u003ETracey Martin\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Chair\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022 data-id=\u00223aba664600ad4b31838cc05e94821900\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000714\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223aba664600ad4b31838cc05e94821900\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! Members, I actually would like to hear the member calling, and I would like to hear what members are saying. So keep the interjections down, please. I am calling Tracey Martin.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022 data-id=\u0022acf9edd53c724e48a300afaf861d4825\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000715\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022acf9edd53c724e48a300afaf861d4825\u0022\u003ETRACEY MARTIN (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Again, as with my learned colleague from the Green Party, this is my first Budget and I found it fascinating\u2014fascinating for what is not in it; fascinating for how small it is and how little vision there is in this Budget. What an opportunity lost, is all I can say to those on the Government benches\u2014what an opportunity lost. You had an opportunity to actually grow the pie. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000716\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003EBut my main question here is for the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, and I wonder if you can clarify something for me. Nobody has mentioned it, and I can find no regulatory impact statement on the removal of the housekeeper tax credit. Again, if I had had this earlier I agree I would have been able to do further research on it. But can you clarify for us, please Minister, whether the removal of this tax credit has any effect at all, and whether anybody has gone to find out whether it has any effect at all on working women today who employ other women to do housekeeping for them. This is an income that some women use. So, again, I would be interested if the Minister could address that, because there is, as I say, no regulatory impact statement on it. It is almost as if the women whom this may or may not affect do not count. We have regulatory impact statements on animals. We have a regulatory impact statement on a few of the other small, little movements inside these taxation bills, but there is nothing here that could possibly give me, or any other woman here in New Zealand, a deeper understanding of how this might affect them. And that is unfortunate, Minister. So I do hope that once I have finished we can actually clear that up. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000717\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003EI do also think that it is a shame, Minister, that just because times have moved on, an Act must be dismissed because it does not serve the purpose of the 1960s and the reason the bill was originally put in place, without considering it carefully inside the values that we have here in the 21st century. I think that it is very interesting that the explanatory note of the bill says: \u201CThe present approach does not achieve this goal\u201D\u2014the goal of the 1960s, which was an administrative goal\u2014\u201Cas many children file tax returns solely to gain access to the tax credit\u2014\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000718\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003EI noticed that my colleague Mark Mitchell said that he used to do a paper run but he never filed a tax credit. Well, that is fine for you, Mr Mitchell, and I appreciate that, but some of us actually have acumen in this sort of area. Some of us who did do these sorts of jobs went through that process and put in our own effort. There was no administrative cost for us, and we gained those tax credits. It was part of that understanding that I believe we are asking from our 21st century students around commerce. I believe that is what we are asking when we want our 21st century students to understand about working, about taxation, and about filling out these forms so that they can fully participate inside government and inside our society. So I think it is a shame that those young people who did go to effort of filing for tax credits\u2014and I think the figure was $240 or something that you mentioned, Minister; that was often the return\u2014will no longer get them, because, apparently, what it was set up for in the 1960s does not apply any more. That is it, and we will do away with it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000719\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003EI also think that the lack of encouragement to earn over $2,340 is interesting. I think that is an interesting way to write it into the bill. I do appreciate that the Minister has addressed, to a certain extent, the reasons for that. But I thought that the National Government was actually about encouraging innovation, encouraging people to work, and encouraging them to raise their incomes. But if these children earn more than $2,340, a new step is suddenly put into place. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000720\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022530ce0c4-c977-40cb-90fb-754f54931ff1\u0022\u003ESo I appreciate, Minister, that you have tried to give an explanation for that. I would appreciate an explanation around the housekeeping, and I do also appreciate the whip now providing me with the well-hidden regulatory impact statement. Thank you. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022 data-id=\u0022da945d369e214e15aa036c6dde454719\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000721\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022da945d369e214e15aa036c6dde454719\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E Part 1 is a very sad part of this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. What we now know is that the National Government, aided and abetted by the Minister in the chair, Mr Dunne, is going to raise revenue of approximately $14 million out of the pockets, out of the piggy banks, and out of the wallets of approximately 68,600 children, according to the regulatory impact statement\u201414 million bucks from 68,600 children. These are kids who are doing paper runs, and things like that\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000722\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ce8ec46b9e92478dbab15a67c2504f3c\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Cleaning.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000723\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a7d99ab3312d4b9aaeb85944310dbdb5\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014cleaning\u2014and delivering the community papers. They will be delivering \u201CDo not vote National\u201D pamphlets at the next election, I am sure, in the back of the little\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000724\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221a38ebe7b46943e78b512a79119b5509\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: They will be volunteers.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000725\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002206fcd0f9488a4f6da4d627ae5b80e6ff\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: They will be volunteers. And you know, I just wonder, for instance, whether Gerry Brownlee ever had a paper run. No, sorry; that would be an oxymoron. That would be completely absurd\u2014a paper run! I am told, though, that Gerry Brownlee had a milk run, you know, back in the old days, when there was full-cream and double-cream milk. But I think very little actually ever got delivered to the front gate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000726\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry talked about the fact that she believed in recycling. Well, I have got to say, if ever there was a member who has come into this House who has been recycled, with the odd scent of compost swirling around her, then, my word, it is that member. It is the member who sits in select committees and intimidates submitters by asking them how they voted. Well, I wonder whether Maggie Barry\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000727\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002235aae981fecc4734a89a97629b70d206\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! Pull it back. [Interruption] I was not a paper boy\u2014we had courier pigeons. Come back to the bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000728\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fa9f72fe6062421c9b7ae5c31a61352b\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: I am sure, Mr Chair, that you aspired to the sort of pizza delivery type of deal, rather than a paper round. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000729\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003EI just say this to this Government. This is the big idea in the Budget. Take 14 million bucks off a bunch of kids. This is the big strategy lined up alongside flogging assets off, and National is trying to hoodwink people by saying, \u201COh, if we buy non - revenue-generating assets, that is a good thing, is it not?\u201D\u2014until the money runs out, of course. So the big idea in the Budget is not to deal with the big issues of taxation. National fails to remind us that it is borrowing $300 million a week so that the top 5 or 10 percent can get the vast majority of the tax cuts. But it is awake enough to take 14 million bucks out of the piggy banks of 68,600 young people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000730\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002235210abe9040453ea0c2c9c0d1cbc42d\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Retrospectively. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000731\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002259ccfe23107346108679f72017ece0a2\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: Retrospectively. Well, I say that Mr Dunne is the man who will go down in history as the biggest auctioneer in our history, if he votes for asset sales\u2014going, going, gone. He is now, of course, the \u201CUncle Scrooge\u201D of the Parliament\u201D\u2014the \u201CUncle Scrooge\u201D of the Parliament. What a great legacy Mr Dunne will deliver as he has flip-flopped from party to party. He is, as I think the record will show, the longest serving revenue Minister in the history of the parliamentary Commonwealth. He has been in more parties and in more coalitions that I have had hot dinners, and more than Gerry Brownlee has had hot dinners.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000732\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227b841006c71a475fb042fe791f30e6af\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000733\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022540cf06a923a411ba0719603829bf78d\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: No; sorry, that would be silly. But I say this. I ask Mr Dunne to reflect on the provision in Part 1. Does he really want to go down in history as the man who took 14 million bucks out of the piggy banks of 68,600 paper boys, delivery people, cleaners\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000734\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002286cb0ce0754f4d8fa8545972aea4cf5e\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry\u003C/span\u003E: More trivia.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000735\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002275b32633307e4d47b667c9928bd17e87\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014oh, sorry; there is one over there, the old turnip in the corner\u2014and paper girls? Does he really want to go down in history\u2014[Interruption] Go on gardening leave, I say to Ms Barry\u2014go on gardening leave. You will be better at it. It is a better occupation for you, I think, than intimidating submitters to select committees. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000736\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003ESo Mr Dunne will go down in history as a person who took the money out of the mouths of babes. That will be his legacy to the Parliament\u2014that, and helping the Government flog off assets. What does Mr Dunne say to his grandkids? Has he had a conversation with his grandkids and said: \u201CSorry, guys. You know how you were going to do that after-school job? Sorry, I\u2019m the revenue Minister, and I\u2019m going to sneak around the back, and as you get your 45 bucks I\u2019m going to whip out the tax from you before you can slip it into the piggy bank at home.\u201D? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000737\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003ENational is the party of aspiration. Was not this the party that was encouraging entrepreneurship? Well, should we not be doing that with our young people? Is it not Miss Bennett who says: \u201CYou should get off your backside and get a job.\u201D, even though, of course, the unemployment rate has gone up by 50,000 under her wonderful legacy? So National is saying, on the one hand, \u201CGet a job.\u201D We have 68,600 young people working in jobs, and for many of them, I say in all seriousness, it is no longer an after-school job for a bit of pocket money. No\u2014if you are out on Struggle Street, battling away, thanks to this mob, paying higher GST, paying the higher charges, having lost your job, and having been absolutely gutted as a family, then the paper boy\u2019s or paper girl\u2019s job, or the little bit of cleaning around at the butchers shop, is no longer about pocket money. It is actually about helping mum and dad try to make ends meet. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000738\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003ETo the geniuses over there, one of whom has poddled off to the back of the vege patch in the garden, I say this. Forty-five bucks to some of those people over there may not be a big chunk of dough. Oh, no\u2014not to some of them, of course. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000739\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a3f344060ed34cf3bd92b81f86860593\u0022\u003EAndrew Williams\u003C/span\u003E: A bottle of wine.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000740\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022355c937e6a0949629ee45ed14be9d833\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, a bottle of wine. Yes, and I think a few of them over there have been imbibing tonight. But to a child, earning 45 bucks\u2014and every dollar they earn they will have to pay tax on\u2014that is their contribution in many poor families to the family food budget, the power bill, the rates, the rent, and all those things. I wonder whether, in her sort of blas\u00E9 way, Miss Bennett has actually considered that as she leaves a legacy of 50,000-plus people unemployed. How does she balance that against the call for aspiration? Oh, do not look at me with dagger eyes, Miss Bennett\u2014I know it hurts, but they are the facts. There are 50,000 people unemployed, thanks to that Minister and her inaction. She says: \u201CGet off your backside and get a job.\u201D Of course, she has not provided any jobs. In fact, she has presided over an administration that has gutted jobs from this country\u2014gutted them. Yet she is prepared to sit there\u2014I do not think she is talking to herself. I presume that might be an unintelligible conversation. She talks to herself. I wonder if she will go out and talk to the young people in her electorate, and tell them why she is aiding and abetting this, and tell them why they should not believe what she said about aspiration, because, of course, she is going to take their dollars. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000741\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003EOh, hang on: the balloon has burst. I say this: is she going to go out to her electorate and actually talk about that? Is she actually going to go and talk to her constituents and explain to their mothers and fathers why this is happening? Because, as Trevor Mallard said a little while ago, those 68,600 young people will not want to get paid to deliver pamphlets at the next election\u2014they will volunteer. They will volunteer to deliver \u201CDon\u2019t vote for National\u201D cards into every letterbox in this country. Of course, Paula Bennett tries every trick to divert us away from the fact that her legacy is 50,000 people on the scrap heap\u2014the lost and lonely\u2014and now you add to that a dash for cash for $14 million. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000742\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003EWell, I just say that she can squawk all she likes and talk about all sorts of things, but the problem Paula Bennett has is she cannot walk away from facts and history. She cannot walk away from her own legacy. She cannot walk away from 50,000 people on the scrap heap. I just wonder, as members go out this weekend to their constituencies in Whanganui and a few other places around there\u2014I wonder if Mr Borrows will front up to the parents, whip down to the primary school and see the teachers, and tell the kids that their paper round is over and they may as well go home and sit on their backsides, because the Government is playing \u201CUncle Scrooge\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000743\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003ELet us come back to it in context. This is not the biggest issue of moment for this economy; nor is it the biggest issue of moment that should be addressed in this Budget. We were looking for a strategy, for a plan, for anything, as are businesses in Auckland and Christchurch and other places. The best they could do in Canterbury\u2014the best Budget announcement down there\u2014is for Mr Brownlee to announce he has spent half the dough\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000744\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022312a333fb5e04111b84b1bb21f7be766\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: We are on Part 1. It has got nothing to do with Canterbury.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000745\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222572f4fe03b4471797c1e38911a62e18\u0022\u003EHon CLAYTON COSGROVE\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, yes it has. Oh, that is my next speech. Part 1 has a heck of a lot to do with Canterbury, because we do have young people down there who do after-school jobs. We do have young people down there who are scraping for it. We do have families down there who are destitute. I beg to differ, without challenging your ruling, that this has everything to do with Canterbury and the rest of New Zealand. It is a bill that has no ideas in it and no strategy in it. The whole Budget is encapsulated around the odd nickel-and-dime tweak and a bit of spin. It has everything, I say to you, Mr Chairperson\u2014try visiting there sometime\u2014to do with Canterbury. There are 10,000 families down there who will not have the means to carry on for much longer if this Government does not come up with some ideas on how to employ people, how to engage people, and how to support people, and ditch silly little mean-spirited ideas like this, in this bill. It is a mean-spirited bill from a mean-spirited Government, wrapping it up in austerity. No one believes it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022 data-id=\u00229171398e25ab40489aebc6471bf6e7c4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000746\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229171398e25ab40489aebc6471bf6e7c4\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY (National\u2014Rotorua):\u003C/span\u003E The last speaker in this debate, Clayton Cosgrove, used to be a man of vision. He used to have passion for New Zealanders. He wanted to do the right thing for New Zealanders. I would for a moment say, before I talk about Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and how concerned I am about that last speech, that in as far as Canterbury is concerned he has worked extremely hard over the years for Kate Wilkinson\u2019s constituents to make sure that they have a better lifestyle down there. So what I would say to you is that\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000747\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002218b6987db333461c9f76c97b935b14dc\u0022\u003EHon Clayton Cosgrove\u003C/span\u003E: Is that the best you can do?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000748\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228b685ca87d044fc1a7c85c2b850bd752\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY\u003C/span\u003E: No, there is some more coming, Clayton\u2014just wait. There is certainly some more coming. In 2008 he and his party opposite were out of touch and out of time. What has happened this year? They are still out of touch, but they have got all the time in the world. He has had lots of time this afternoon to read Part 1 of this bill, but that was all we got: the same old rhetoric that always comes from the Labour Party. New Zealanders were sick of it only 6 months ago, and, of course, 3 years before that, and it keeps on coming. Well, can I ask one thing of the members opposite: please keep it coming, because on this side of the House we want to get out there and talk about the issues that are important to New Zealanders.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000749\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003ESo what is important to New Zealanders? Important to New Zealanders, and it is in Part 1 of this bill, is balancing the books, investing more in education, and making things fairer for all New Zealanders\u2014not the things we have heard from members opposite.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000750\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EI want to come to clause 5 in Part 1. I want to say to members opposite\u2014only those in the Labour Party\u2014do not be worried any more; this clause does not apply to you. There will be no restrictions on the use of the herd scheme when it comes to the way you get together and work out what it is that we must do for New Zealanders. This is about livestock, not members opposite in the Labour Party. The reason that that is important\u2014[Interruption] What was that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000751\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EI am going to yield in a moment because I am keen to hear from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, but I am keen to know, in terms of clause 5, which is restricting the use of the herd scheme, whether there are farmers who use this scheme who take a cow from one of their neighbours\u2014maybe a neighbour gives them a cow\u2014and decide to go on TradeMe and sell it to somebody else for more money than it was given to them for or they bought it for. Could this part of this bill be used to sell on TradeMe something that had been given to you, or maybe something that you had bought? Let us say you buy a cow from your neighbour for $500; could you go and sell it on TradeMe the next day for $1,000? Or if he gave it to you, could you sell it on TradeMe for an amount more than it is worth? I would be interested to hear from the Minister on that. I would hope no member on this side of the House would do that. What about tickets to go and view that cow singing or dancing? Could you sell them on TradeMe\u2014tickets to see that cow\u2014under this part of the bill? I think not.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000752\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EI want, as all of my colleagues on this side of the House want, to get back to my electorate. Many of us are electorate MPs, and we want to talk to New Zealanders about the important parts of this Budget. This is an important bill and we must move forward with this. This is an important bill because it helps rebalance our economy, helps us focus on what is important for New Zealanders, and helps us spend money in areas where New Zealanders want us to spend it\u2014to be more productive, and on education for our children.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000753\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EAs most people are watching television, I say to them that a Labour MP will get up in a moment. Do not adjust your TV. The sound you hear is meant to come from them; there is not a problem with your television. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022 data-id=\u00225382bfb2d93c4cc0b15de474c21bc597\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000754\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225382bfb2d93c4cc0b15de474c21bc597\u0022\u003ESUE MORONEY (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E Yes, if people are still tuned in, that was the big idea brains trust from National about what will fix these economic woes that this country has: Todd McClay talking about cows on TradeMe. That is the big idea that they have! Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000755\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022eaf79431-1033-44f1-a633-22633da52c0d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226f3ce8da643a411c99ae0d141114db5e\u0022\u003EDavid Bennett\u003C/span\u003E: You didn\u2019t get the joke!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000756\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227d56975da7be406db56c6e6422306289\u0022\u003ESUE MORONEY\u003C/span\u003E: It was hard to understand what he said, but it was about cows on TradeMe. That is the big issue that is going to fix the economic woes of this country. Part 1, I think, shows how out of touch this Government is with the economic woes of this country and the issues faced by ordinary families in New Zealand. They have found in Part 1 the culprits to our economic woes. They have gone looking for them and they found them: the culprits are the paper boys and paper girls of this country not paying tax. That is what they are going to fix up to bring this country into economic growth. Well, that just goes to show how devoid of ideas and how devoid of an actual plan for the brighter future they promised this country that Government actually is. Part 1 of this bill says what we are going to do\u2014and why we suspended the Budget debate to fix the economic woes and the absolute bottoming out of the economy in this country on that Government\u2019s watch\u2014is we are going to start taxing children who are doing paper rounds. They are children, in fact, who come from probably some of the poorest families in this country. They are the children who are out there earning more than $2,340 a year not because it is fun, not because they feel like doing it, but because that contributes to their family\u2019s income. Those are the very families that that Government is going after. The Government is making them the culprits for its lack of having a plan, its lack of having any ambition of bringing this country out of the economic doldrums that it got us into. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000757\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003EI go on to also let people know about another part that goes after children, in Part 1. This Government, going after children all the time as it is, has taken away the tax credit for childcare. That is right. It has not been spoken about much, but it is saying that it does not want working families to be able to have a tax credit for the childcare payments that they pay. But it is about actually joining the dots together, because not only are they taking the tax credit away but they have frozen the subsidies to early childhood education in this Budget today. That means that fees are going to go up for parents. That will even further stretch the family budget that is already stretched to breaking point. That is how out of touch that Government is with working families, because it does not understand how bad their budgets are. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000758\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003EPart 1 actually makes it worse. Not only are fees going to go up for early childhood education but now they are taking away the tax credits that parents can currently claim for childcare expenses, and that is being done through Part 1 of this bill. It is a mean-spirited bill, because it does not fix any of the economic woes of this country. We are flatlining economically. We are in an economic rut thanks to that Government and its lack of any plan. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000759\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003EWhat is the Government doing to fix that? Well, it is pickpocketing the pocket money of our children and it is also saying that families can no longer claim a small, but important, tax credit for childcare expenses. This is on the back of delivering a Budget today that increases childcare expenses for all of those families, as well. That Government is showing, by Part 1 of the bill, that it is completely out of touch with the struggles that working families face. It is completely out of touch with that. Not only does the Government\u2019s saying that it will put a financial veto against extending paid parental leave show how out of touch it is with the everyday struggles of working families but it is using Part 1 of this bill to attack working families all over again and to say that they can no longer claim a tax credit for childcare expenses. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000760\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b2567d3e-a09c-47b4-bd50-2f5bb4049762\u0022\u003EThose childcare expenses are going to go up as a result of other measures that the Government has taken in the Budget today. This is just a double whammy for working families with young children. Is it not interesting that the Government wants us to think that it is interested in vulnerable children? Paula Bennett wants us to believe that, but here she is, in Part 1 of this bill, attacking those very children.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u00224c93a2188f36423eb63f3684a056001e\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000761\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00224c93a2188f36423eb63f3684a056001e\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue):\u003C/span\u003E That contribution reminds me that I ought to reply to the New Zealand First member Tracey Martin who spoke earlier about the housekeeper and childcare rebate. For the benefit of the member in the Chamber\u2014I gather she may now have the regulatory impact statement and will have read paragraphs 7, 8, and 9, which set out the background fairly clearly\u2014can I simply say this. The rebate was first put in place in 1933 in quite different social circumstances from today. The average claim on that rebate is now $263 per annum, so it is not a huge money-spinner for the families who might have been making that claim. It is about $5 a week. The member who has just resumed her seat spoke about the cost of childcare. The $5-a-week subsidy has been in place in an environment where since 1933 a huge number of changes have been made with regard to the provision of childcare. For instance, we now have 20 hours free, we have $1.4 billion being expended in the childcare area by the Government each year. The rationale for the policy has long since ceased to be. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000762\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EWith regard to the housekeeper claim, it is worth making the point\u2014for the benefit of the member\u2014that there are a number of families with disabled children who currently use the housekeeper claim in respect of their circumstances. In fact, when you look at the range of disability support services currently provided and the money that is provided for in this Budget and last year\u2019s Budget, when you also look at the Ministry of Social Development\u2019s child disability allowance and the disability allowance generally, the rationale for then saying that on top of that you can claim a claim that has a maximum of $310 a year really ceases to be. What this particular provision is about, like the earlier provision we discussed regarding the child allowance and like the transitional allowance, is removing a provision that no longer serves the purpose for which it was established. We have a different way of dealing with these issues now. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000763\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EAt the time when this particular credit was established in 1933, there was certainly nothing like comprehensive childcare, there was certainly nothing like comprehensive funding or support for that childcare, and I doubt that there was care for those with disabilities in anything like the way we have today. The circumstances over the intervening just under 80 years have substantially changed. The Government\u2019s view is that a credit of this nature, which ties up a fair amount of resource, is poorly targeted, is not even being claimed by significant numbers of the lowest-income groups in the group, and has outlived its usefulness. That is why, I say to the member, we are removing it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u00223828aa7141f648b8a2ce3ceb7ad073a0\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000764\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223828aa7141f648b8a2ce3ceb7ad073a0\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E I rise to take another call on behalf of New Zealand First in regard to what I call the \u201CFagin Budget\u201D. We are very fortunate that it is after 8.30 at night now, because people who might be watching Parliament out there in New Zealand television land would not probably be able to conjure up the same images before 8.30, because it would almost have to be censored\u2014the thoughts of Fagin from the famous movie Oliver. If you can imagine Fagin and what Fagin looked like, then put into your minds what Bill English and John Key look like, and then go back to what Fagin looked like, there is an incredibly close comparison of the three. They are all as miserable as sin.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000765\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b3df715659ce402cb1de14ce2ed976fb\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! Come back to Part 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000766\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c07fbe3db70c4942a9714b60b0355ad6\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: When I look at this regulatory impact statement, all I can think of is that it is a \u201CFaginistic\u201D regulatory statement. When you read a sentence such as: \u201CGenerally speaking, the proposed option should not impose any new compliance costs on businesses. However,\u201D\u2014and this is the however\u2014\u201Cbusinesses that employ only school children on very low wages (below $2,340 p.a.) may have to begin withholding PAYE from these employees from 1 April.\u201D Is that not appalling? And you wonder how this all gets through the process. It is all done by smoke and mirrors by this Government. Further down, and this is written by the Inland Revenue Department, it states: \u201CDue to the need for Budget secrecy\u201D\u2014this is the Budget secrecy around children\u2019s pocket money\u2014\u201Cand the short time frames involved, there was no opportunity to consult in the usual manner\u201D with affected parties. There was no opportunity to consult in the usual manner with affected parties. \u201CThe Treasury and Inland Revenue were the only agencies involved in developing the proposals and carrying out the analysis.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000767\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EI am quite shocked by that and the fact that this will impact on over 56,000 young people in this country, who basically are going to have their pocket money robbed from them in terms of tax taken off from 1 April 2013. Employers will have to start deducting PAYE tax from a very small wage that each individual child might be receiving. It is appalling.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000768\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWhen I look over the page I can see the housekeeper and childcare tax credit. I can remember as a young father, with my wife and our family, when we needed after-school care for the children from time to time. I can recall, as a young earning family, that we greatly valued the fact that at the end of the year we did get some tax credits for getting childcare after school and things like that. You look at this now\u2014a miserable $310 per year for young families needing after-school care, needing assistance to take care of children for maybe a couple of hours, who up until now could claim up to $310 to help pay for that after-school care and cannot get it any more. Is that not miserable? Is that not absolutely miserable? Is it not\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000769\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022537df284c8ca4d9cb4c6d733a4dd7cdf\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I sorry to interpret the member, but can I ask members to be a little bit more succinct with the interjections.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000770\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ab2e4bfcd67a4daabda574aa744b765e\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: We have seen from this National Government tax rebates and tax deductions and reductions in tax for its wealthy mates for several billion dollars in the last year or two. We have seen several billion dollars of reduction in tax for its friends and its mates\u2014high income earners. We have seen $1,000 a week for the Prime Minister\u2014$1,000 a week less tax he pays, as the Prime Minister. But the same National Government, 2 years later, after giving all those tax cuts to its mates\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000771\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226ba3b04a108147eeaf0232f05cf388b5\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! Part 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000772\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222507c043c08a42f3bc6b93b412104f36\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014will take it out on the poor young children of this country, the young families who might get a bit of a tax credit for their child-minding, the students who maybe were\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022 data-id=\u002298a28cf5741f47bd9d5be4720fa420ec\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000773\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002298a28cf5741f47bd9d5be4720fa420ec\u0022\u003EJACINDA ARDERN (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E I am pleased to take a call, because I have been reading the regulatory impact statement that relates to Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and I was looking for something quite particular. I was looking to see whether or not the Inland Revenue Department, in particular, had done any costings around how much it would impact on the department for it to have to redo its communications, and in particular its website. Why, you might ask. Well, quite simply because the Inland Revenue Department\u2019s website currently features what I would call a paper girl poster child. I am not sure whether you can see this, but currently on the Inland Revenue Department website you have got a child of probably, I would say, roughly the age of, what, 13 with the title above her of \u201CNot sure how to go about your tax?\u201D. I have to say to the Minister in the chair, Minister Dunne, that now, I guess, that child is no longer going\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000774\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d70844daed364bcba6605efed6d46fe3\u0022\u003ETodd McClay\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Could the member table that iPad? I would like to have a look at it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000775\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002235ed9870c5194dd1920869bd763d1804\u0022\u003EJACINDA ARDERN\u003C/span\u003E: If Todd McClay would like to see this online, it is on the Inland Revenue Department website, on its home page. That is the first thing that will come up when you go on to the website, if you would like to see that. But I could suggest, if the Minister would like to save some money, that you could keep this as is, leave the words \u201CNot sure how to go about your tax?\u201D, and just add \u201CNow you don\u2019t have to.\u201D Or perhaps we could just leave it and have it say: \u201CIt doesn\u2019t matter how old you are or where you are, we will find you.\u201D That is essentially the change that we are seeing today. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000776\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EIn lieu of the regulatory impact statement featuring the changes that the Inland Revenue Department will, no doubt, have to add to its communications, I was interested to see that there were several options considered by the department in considering the changes to this particular tax credit. It is interesting that the first option was to replace the tax credit with a limited tax exemption, and that is essentially, obviously, what the Minister has opted for. But I wonder how much the exemptions, in his mind, are going to equate to. Of the $14 million we are going to save, does he have some kind of estimation as to what amount those exemptions will equate to of the $14 million the Government intends to save from making this change? And would the tax exemption apply to child modelling? I am just interested, as an aside. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000777\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EFinally, paragraph 25 of the regulatory impact statement says: \u201CThe second option, repealing the credit with no replacement, would mean large numbers of children earning small amounts of income would be pulled into the tax system.\u201D That is why I am interested in that question, Minister, because if we are actually still talking about large numbers of children being pulled into the tax system because not enough are exempt, then essentially you will not have achieved your intended outcome. I would be interested in the evidence that the Inland Revenue Department has generated for you on that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000778\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EI want to come back to Part 1 and, in particular, new section CW 55BB in clause 4(1), which sets out the age groups that this exemption applies to. Although, of course, we have been leaning back on the paper boy and paper girl, we are in fact talking about young people, younger than 15, who could be in full-time work. I know that we assume in this country that that should not be happening and that a child should be in school, but there are a significant number of 15-year-olds who get exemptions from secondary education and who are entering into work. Now, obviously, this will impact upon them. Of course, those younger than 18\u2014not exactly the child tax credit we were thinking of\u2014who are, in fact, impacted on by all of the Minister\u2019s welfare reforms are in many ways, for all intents and purposes, often treated as adults in our system, rightly or wrongly. So if you are younger than 18 you are now also going to lose out on this tax credit. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000779\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EI imagine that good, hard-working National members would at some point in their aspirational childhood careers have had at least one job, if not multiple jobs, and that they themselves have benefited from this provision previously. No doubt, as the good, taxpaying children that they would have been, I am sure they would have paid tax and filed their tax return, just like the child on the Inland Revenue Department home page, Mr McClay. So in that sense we are essentially seeing yet another change that this Government\u2019s members themselves have directly benefited from. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000780\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EHow much are we saving per person in this? A couple of hundred dollars. But it is still amounting to $14 million for this Government, and that is what demonstrates that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022 data-id=\u00228ce431abc138407ba2823c5f1db2f692\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000781\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228ce431abc138407ba2823c5f1db2f692\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E I want the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, to tell me what analysis of the long-term effects of undermining the work ethic of our youngest people as they first enter the workforce lay behind this measure. We are told by the National Party people that prices always matter, that the amount that people get paid in real terms is what matters. Whenever we remind Government members of the fact that it is having a larger and larger wage gap with Australia, they always say \u201COh, it\u2019s the after-tax number that matters.\u201D But here, for the youngest people in society\u2014for the youngest people in society\u2014no, it is not. It is a different rule for them. It is not the after-tax amount that matters; it is the pre-tax amount. What is wrong with having young people a little bit more incentivised to work, by making sure that they do not have to pay as much tax as they will when they are older? What is wrong with that? What is wrong with that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000782\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002283f53222c08e4be1bc2a8ffa5d4b7566\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: When you\u2019re earning under 45 bucks.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000783\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e7691bf6469e4fbea2c2c21a2cc3add6\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, limited to $45 a week. I ask the Minister whether he is aware that his Government blocked measures to protect some of these very vulnerable young workers from being not paid not just a youth minimum wage, which is what the National Government wants to pay them, but the minimum wage. A lot of these people who work delivering pamphlets do not get the minimum wage. They do not even get the equivalent of a youth minimum wage. They get a contract rate that is so low that I am surprised that some of them are motivated enough to do the work, but they are\u2014they are. We ought to be celebrating the fact that these people do it, despite the pittance that they get for delivering pamphlets. They do not even get the minimum wage, because the National Party would not back our legislation to extend the minimum wage to contract workers. And now the Government is saying that it is going\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000784\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d8dbaf76cf804269975452077a522d3c\u0022\u003EMike Sabin\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s a bit rich to be accusing people of not backing things. Do you vote for anything? No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000785\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e955467d6531425ab0f6dfac3924b8da\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: What was that? I did not hear that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000786\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bac05b0994754b7ea8ee79d57ee3065d\u0022\u003EMike Sabin\u003C/span\u003E: No, I didn\u2019t say anything.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000787\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002291e00d5f5f524484959c30acbe938800\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, OK, you did not say that. Actually\u2014[Interruption] Thank you, thank you. I think the Hansard staff got that. \u201CI did not say that.\u201D he said, and acknowledged his own comment. We will look to see what Hansard caught of that. I did not catch it, but he is obviously embarrassed, because he would not repeat it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000788\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003EThis is short-sighted. This is mean-spirited. I thought Megan Woods\u2019 contribution earlier was interesting: first we had the cycleways, then we had the motorways, and then they went after the paper round.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000789\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022421c77c1a7c349a79d335abeb2752686\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Paper routes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000790\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b4d1b3cd2ddd49378781b2a8b4fc3d9b\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: What was that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000791\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c2ae80eccb2e4cbbb260f36fc9295a3e\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Paper routes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000792\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002216b76683ace5481e8e12e4e28a9307a5\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: The paper routes\u2014that is right. She put it far better than I did. They were standing around the Cabinet table and they thought: \u201CWho can we get? Who is not paying their fair share? Who is not paying their fair share?\u201D. And who did they not look at? They did not look at the top 10 percent, who got 40 percent of the income tax cuts in the tax rounds; they went for the lowest paid, for people not even on the minimum wage and delivering pamphlets for, sometimes, $2 an hour. It really is sometimes $2 an hour. Now, not only will the employer be required to deduct income tax from that amount\u2014compliance costs for the employer, compliance costs for the Inland Revenue Department\u2014but the people who are being paid a miserly amount, and it is sometimes only $2 an hour, will not be able to get a tax refund. They will not be able to get a refund of the tax that they have paid. Some of these kids are poor. Some of them are not, but some of them are. This is the only money they have got, perhaps\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000793\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022515fc73faea44c0bac3e800fa2b654ad\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Averages $5 a week.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000794\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221a6d14754c2e4e11ba3075e90440a934\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: The average is $5 a week. The average is $5 a week, and to some of these kids that $5 a week is the difference between their being able to occasionally go to a movie\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000795\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e9e6a3c352384bd8912e91942233886b\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Oh no, no. It\u2019s half their school uniform.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000796\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f5d71749-ae91-4af7-b2bd-77260398912a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224f10270764d7424aa35e161e82e6849a\u0022\u003EHon DAVID PARKER\u003C/span\u003E: I agree; I was going to come to that. For some of them it is actually what they get to go down to the op shop and buy a few clothes. You know, I think this is pretty mean-spirited. If there were not other things that the Government could have done, if this issue was the last bit that was going to tip this country over the edge, then, you know, maybe. But it is not. It had lots of choices other than this. I want the Minister to stand up and say why the Government picked this choice rather than other choices. Why is it undermining the work ethic of these kids, who are already working for, sometimes, a piddling $2 an hour? They are being taxed on it and they cannot get a break from the Government. It is being taken off them. I hope the Minister stands and takes a call.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022 data-id=\u0022ddf5ded8af5d4be8abf6aea190cf6f6c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000797\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ddf5ded8af5d4be8abf6aea190cf6f6c\u0022\u003EDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour\u2014Wigram):\u003C/span\u003E I am pleased to take a call on this bill, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. What we are seeing here today is that we are picking the pockets of our kids to fund an ideas deficit from the members opposite. They have delivered a Budget today that offers zero hope, zero ideas, and a zero future for young people in New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000798\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EOnly 6 months after re-election this Government has completely given up on its brighter future. It is quietly slinking away from any idea of aspiration, and all it can do is tinker around the edges as it stumbles towards being thrown out of office in 2014. But all I can say to the members opposite is wait until the kids whose pockets you started picking today come of voting age. They are going to be angry, and we have got a sure source of voters there. This Government is spent. It is out of ideas and it knows that its 2010 tax switch was a failure. Now all it can do is tinker round the edges and try to fix things up, and this is just a straight-out revenue grab. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000799\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EI talked in an earlier contribution on this bill about the stunning economic policy we are seeing from the National Government being rolled out in this term and in its previous term. David Parker mentioned this in his contribution tonight. It started with its cycleway. Failure\u2014no jobs. Then there was the \u201CHoliday Highway\u201D. That stimulated the economy, but hang on. That is right: not all of the jobs that were promised in the last Budget eventuated. And then today we have this stunner\u2014the third part in the trilogy\u2014the paper route. This Government is taking it to the kids and taking the money off them. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000800\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EThese are not the taxation issues that we should be talking about tonight. We should be talking about taxation and about how that can be used to stimulate our economy. We are told by members opposite that they do not want to be talking about the things that are not important to our nation. Well, put something in the Budget that is, instead of taking money out of the pockets of our children. For 4 years Labour has been imploring National to put children at the centre of its policy and to do something about the 270,000 Kiwi kids who live in poverty. That is one in four, or 25 percent of them. But we did not mean this in terms of putting children at the centre of your policy. We did not mean for you to go away and come up with a taxation policy that seeks to put your hands into their pockets and take away their pocket money. We did not mean this. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000801\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EAs I have also talked about, one can only imagine the thinking that got the National Government and its coalition partners to here. They were thinking: \u201CFourteen million dollars\u2014we really need $14 million. There are those bludging kids. We need to go after them again. For too long they have had it too easy. They don\u2019t pay for their own accommodation. They are on the take. They are demanding an education, and do you know what? When they get a bit older, they might even want to go on and do postgraduate training. We cannot let that happen. So we need to make sure that they know they don\u2019t have a future in this country.\u201D What are those members thinking? That there are too many grubby little hands looking for a hand up?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000802\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E National is the party that talks of aspiration, and this is a joke. These are just kids who are working hard, and what the members opposite do not understand is the income that these kids are receiving. It is being chortled about what a small pittance this money is, but this income is important to these kids, and it is important to their families. Frighteningly, increasingly, this money is becoming part of household budgets in this country and becoming an important part of household budgets in making ends meet. One of the things that I think is interesting in the regulatory impact statements is that we see that the credit is received by approximately 68,600 children, averaging $240. But the regulatory impact statements do not go on to note that the tax credit does not apply to income from interest or dividends\u2014meaning a child must pay tax on the first dollar of income from these sources. So, for the members opposite, is this about equality? Is this about thinking working children are just getting a bit of a break and you need to bring them into line? This is just not fair.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022656487fe-e0a2-485c-8dc2-fe61b9aec128\u0022 data-id=\u0022ed025a73658b4de18539fba7db2962d8\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000803\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022656487fe-e0a2-485c-8dc2-fe61b9aec128\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ed025a73658b4de18539fba7db2962d8\u0022\u003EDr JIAN YANG (National):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the question be now put.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022 data-id=\u00223ea1c9bfb69c42fe911ff04c1f664ddf\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000804\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223ea1c9bfb69c42fe911ff04c1f664ddf\u0022\u003ESu\u2019a WILLIAM SIO (Labour\u2014M\u0101ngere):\u003C/span\u003E I want to begin by quoting a text that has been sent to me. It is a text that was sent to Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, and this mother has forwarded it on to me: \u201CMy son delivers a paper. He makes $5 a run that takes him about 1\u00BD to 2 hours to do. How can your Government tax him on the pittance he makes? You should be encouraging kids to work hard. Shame on you.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000805\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003EThis mother is obviously listening to this debate and is saying to this Government: \u201CShame on you. Shame on you for trying to take money out of young kids who are trying to make ends meet.\u201D I quote that because the people listening to this debate have children delivering papers, earning, as she says, a pittance, and this Government is now ready to put its hands in the pockets of those young kids. I do not think that this Government here understands the struggles of hard-working communities struggling to make ends meet. They will remember that the first Budget of this Government was mana-enhancing. Those were the words. Well, there was no mana-enhancing for the community. The second Budget, I understand, was \u201Cthe road to recovery\u201D\u2014[Interruption]\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000806\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ee318550474547dfab8781aa2efe3311\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! The member cannot say \u201CTell the truth.\u201D In future\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000807\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e73a120b3b9c44e9b1f4891368a5c87d\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Withdraw and apologise.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000808\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002200c3463b8c3041ac94f25bd9b6bac7a0\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I am ruling. I do not know where it came from, but whoever said it, you cannot say \u201CTell the truth.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000809\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c752355fcc7c408781a78cebeba044a0\u0022\u003ETodd McClay\u003C/span\u003E: Tell another lie.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000810\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022676925da20194feca1c1a203e2251db4\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that? The member will stand and apologise for that comment.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000811\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002230bc648e010040ccaa85810a50357743\u0022\u003ETodd McClay\u003C/span\u003E: I apologise.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000812\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002200eb6ef226d346799c4f3a73ca41092e\u0022\u003ESu\u2019a WILLIAM SIO\u003C/span\u003E: That speaks loud, does it not?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000813\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227aa3575054ab45a5b8cce0a04ff6195e\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I have ruled and that is the end of the matter. Proceed with the debate.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000814\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223a8d80f683a0439a92f1821d0d5d5a81\u0022\u003ESu\u2019a WILLIAM SIO\u003C/span\u003E: So their first Budget was supposed to be mana-enhancing. There was no such mana-enhancing in working-class communities. Their second Budget was called \u201Cthe road to recovery\u201D. All we got to see was the dead-end. All we got to see was the dead-end, because what they did was they fixed the tax rate so those on the highest income got the biggest chunk of the tax cut, while the rest of working-class New Zealanders got GST increases. That is what we get from this Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000815\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003EWe also heard last year about a brighter future. Where is the brighter future for 160,000 people unemployed? Where is the brighter future for people who are jobless and who would work\u2014and I am referring to the changes in the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill here in clause 3\u2014where are the changes? Where is the brighter future for the people who are jobless, want to work, but cannot find a job? This Government says it is on the road to recovery. Well, the recovery continues. There is no such recovery for working communities who are struggling to make ends meet. The only recovery that many of the community are experiencing at the moment is coming from Australia\u2014the 50,000 people who are going there, 1,000 every week, is what we are seeing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000816\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002212f0a3acef684dabb8e0d5ffc97a98ce\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Part 1 is a very succinct part, and I bring the member back to it. Just concentrate on Part 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000817\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ae1fab53fb8b48ce80c81780b5f545ba\u0022\u003ESu\u2019a WILLIAM SIO\u003C/span\u003E: Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act. The 50,000 people travelling to Australia do not see a future, because this Government keeps taking from them the very little money they have. So there is no brighter future. When we read clause 4 in Part 1, \u201CAmendment to Income Tax Act 2007\u201D, what future is there for this mother who is saying that her young son is earning money, trying to scrape by and saving? Perhaps this money goes towards the cost of the uniform, but all they are hearing from this Government is that it will take away the very little money they are earning. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000818\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003EI do not think this Government has any understanding of the struggles that our communities are going through. I suppose it is because the Government does not understand that $3, $5, or $10 to a low-income family is worth so much more than it is to those who earn quite significant amounts of money. I suppose that Ministers, who earn over $200,000, probably have no idea of the struggles of a young boy who, in this case, is earning $5 a day on average. They do not understand what this young man is going through. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000819\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022b398827c-6bf5-403e-90dc-ff03205302a5\u0022\u003ESo I am saying to this Government that we should have been debating ways of ensuring that families who are struggling do get money in their pockets. Families having money in their pockets and being paid decent wages are the sorts of debates that we should have been having tonight. But, no, all we have is a Budget that does not provide any hope to young people who want to get an education. It does not provide any hope for people who are unemployed at the moment and who want to be able to find jobs. It does not provide hope to people who want to see New Zealand grow. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022c8b3fb34949043a2b56086cc6af57c5e\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EPart 1 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000820\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00222301dff2148243389a3ead9f885638b1\u0022\u003EPart 2  Amendments to Tax Administration Act 1994\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u002284ccd27dcf724a70bff9e7d19c59f1fa\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 57\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EPart 2 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000821\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00220814200bc3304b8a822c19f9f304b8f0\u0022\u003EPart 3  Student loan scheme: Repeal of 10% voluntary repayment bonus\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022 data-id=\u0022999742b19a594a9284e6807dcb1c8df0\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000822\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022999742b19a594a9284e6807dcb1c8df0\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS (Labour\u2014Rimutaka):\u003C/span\u003E I remember not long after I became a member of Parliament participating in a debate that introduced this very provision that we are now deleting, as set out in Part 3 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. I have to say that I welcome the National Party\u2019s about-face on this. It has actually got it right at long last, because this repayment bonus was a total rort of the system when the Government introduced it, and it has finally worked that out. But is it not interesting what a difference a couple of years make? What were Government members saying when they introduced this piece of legislation? Well, we will start with the Minister in the chair, Peter Dunne, who said: \u201CI say to the House that this is a significant incentive for students to pay their loans earlier.\u201D And it gets better; it gets better: \u201CI cannot fathom why anyone would oppose the introduction of such an incentive.\u201D This is the Minister who is now in the chair deleting the very incentive that he could not possibly fathom how anybody would be opposed to, and now he is in the chair, doing away with that very same incentive. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000823\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EWell, the Labour Party was right, because this is a rort. It is a total rort, and now the Government has got the officials\u2019 advice to say that it is a total rort. What has the Ministry of Education said? It said: \u201CIn 2011,\u201D\u2014last year\u2014\u201C2,611 borrowers repaid their student loans in the same year they borrowed, receiving $1.8 million in bonuses \u2026 This resulted in a cost to the Government.\u201D In other words, what the Ministry of Education is claiming is that people who did not need to take out the loans were taking out the loans in order to get the repayment bonus. It was a little kickback, so I am actually surprised that the National Party is doing away with this, because it is normally quite good on that sort of stuff\u2014rewarding people and creating all these loopholes in the system. The National Party is normally quite good at that. That is normally what it quite enjoys doing, but thankfully in this particular case it has finally realised that it made an awful mistake when it introduced this ridiculous repayment bonus, which was only ever going to encourage people who did not need to take out student loans to take out student loans. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000824\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EPeople have always been able to repay their loans faster. In fact, the National Government\u2014the National Party, I should say, because it was not the Government at the time\u2014opposed the very thing that halved the repayment times for student loans, which was making them interest-free. That halved the repayment times for student loans, and what did John Key call that? He called it a hoax, and he said that he was going to fight it with every bone in his body. Well, I am not sure how many bones he has left, but interest-free student loans are still here, and John Key did not put up much of a fight, and now he says that he is going to keep the interest-free student loans. So it was not really much of a fight. That was the thing that halved the repayment times for student loans. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000825\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EUnfortunately, the National Party keeps trimming around the edges of the student loan scheme, but we know that eventually it will get to the point where it will say \u201COh, we just can\u2019t afford it any more.\u201D It is softening people up for it. It is trimming all around the edges of student support, with its trimming of student allowance eligibility, and with its trimming of who is eligible to get a student loan in the first place. Let us bear in mind the fact that the student loan scheme was set up, in the first place, to ensure that nobody was prevented from entering tertiary education because of financial barriers. That is why the loan scheme was set up. Of course, the loan scheme was set up as a result of a broken promise by the then National Government back in 1990\u2014or 1991, I think it was, when it technically did it\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000826\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220764cb79f8aa4953894a7c8897881aa5\u0022\u003EHon Clayton Cosgrove\u003C/span\u003E: Who was that? Who was the Minister? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000827\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226267a5360aca4ba6a965b0dd95f47c53\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS\u003C/span\u003E: I am not going to get into that, but I do recall that the Minister at the time had campaigned up and down the country pledging to do away with university and polytechnic tuition fees, and that he would resign if he had not done so. So what did the Government do? It did away with the Government-established tuition fees, and instead introduced institutional tuition fees, which were higher than the ones that the Government had put in place. [Interruption] That is right. It introduced the student loan scheme to allow the students to pay for those, because the criticism at the time was\u2014and it was a legitimate criticism\u2014that those new fees introduced by the then National Government as another one of its broken promises were going to act as a barrier to participation. So it set up the student loan scheme in order to overcome some of those barriers. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000828\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EThe student loan scheme, I think, has improved remarkably since the then Labour Government back in 2005 removed the interest on student loans. That halved\u2014more or less halved, give or take\u2014the repayment times for student loans. I think that was a very positive thing. Those are the sorts of bold initiatives that a bold Government takes when it wants to change something. This Government would not know a bold initiative if it tripped over it in the street. We have not seen any bold initiatives in this Budget. This, most certainly, is not a bold initiative\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000829\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002229799ebe509a490296633e9e20ebd3f3\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000830\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003EDebate interrupted.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524dfd4018f9a3d4077b7a160ce8a79387a000831\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003ESitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Friday)\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000001\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00228a854c76e4b346b5a8dc4a23fdc080bb\u0022\u003EThursday, 24 May 2012\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000002\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022ccbbceca45674a7f83790edcc91c7357\u0022\u003E(continued on Friday, 25 May 2012)\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000003\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022cb77c3b91ebf4725a9d2d1db0ad186de\u0022\u003ETaxation (Budget Measures) Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000004\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022b87b1d8947a448fca10f5f7473941308\u0022\u003EIn Committee\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000005\u0022\u003EDebate resumed.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000006\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022e43aa94e25a84ac995b98865e453fcc2\u0022\u003EPart 3  Student loan scheme: Repeal of 10% voluntary repayment bonus (continued)\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u002228486c56a1624537bdf23202a0c4bede\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000007\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002228486c56a1624537bdf23202a0c4bede\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy)\u003C/span\u003E: Good morning, everybody. The sitting is resumed, and the House is in Committee on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. The question is that Part 3 stand part. Chris Hipkins has the call; he has 4\u00BD minutes remaining.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022 data-id=\u002291bd0169e3a544d99f7ae8bc7eb1fb83\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000008\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002291bd0169e3a544d99f7ae8bc7eb1fb83\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS (Labour\u2014Rimutaka):\u003C/span\u003E Thank you, Mr Chairperson\u2014I am very happy to take those. As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by the break last night, it is slightly ironic to be here debating the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill only a few years after the National Government introduced it. We heard from the likes of the revenue Minister, Peter Dunne, that he could not fathom why anybody would oppose it\u2014he could not fathom why anybody would oppose it. And here he is in the chair today and doing away with that very measure that he could not fathom why anyone would oppose. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000009\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EThere are other National members who had quite a lot to say on this, as well\u2014Louise Upston, for example. Louise Upston was very, very supportive of this\u2014very supportive. \u201CThe message, very clearly\u201D, she said, \u201Cis that our young people will be debt-free sooner\u201D, which was going to be the result of this bonus repayment scheme\u2014this absolute rort that the Ministry of Education has pointed out has resulted in an increase in the number of people who borrow for 1 year and pay it back straight away, so that they can benefit from the repayment bonuses. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000010\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EI think it is a good thing that the Government is doing away with this particular piece of very bad legislation, which it rushed through in 2009 as part of its effort to look like it did care about students. Well, of course, we know it does not care about students now, because of all the other mean, nasty things it has done to students, like trimming their allowances\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000011\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ca15b5b98eb34a4198e084494fb42e14\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: So how much more money are we putting in education\u2014do you know the figure?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000012\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228b0adc5037a04a32ace1a4b8d6d5b9a8\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS\u003C/span\u003E: What was that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000013\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228175f29726e84b1da06297076742f516\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: How much more are we putting in education?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000014\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ba5e48639f634c269cf739fce277ecb1\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS\u003C/span\u003E: Not much more into student support; in fact, probably less into student support\u2014far less into student support. I am willing to wager that the growth in tertiary education funding is less than the growth in the overall tertiary student population and the rising cost of tertiary education. I would say, overall in real terms, per student, it is going down. I would be willing to bet that, and suddenly the Government is very, very quiet. Their heads are down and they have nothing to say about that\u2014nothing to say about that. Doing away with this very half-baked scheme, cooked up by Steven Joyce back in about 2007, is a good thing. It is a good\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000015\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002286ba4284813d4e3a92cd8c30b754009e\u0022\u003EGrant Robertson\u003C/span\u003E: Actually, I think it might have been Anne Tolley.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000016\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c8d50d49969e4f109e25ed0ee293f890\u0022\u003ECHRIS HIPKINS\u003C/span\u003E: It might have been Anne Tolley. It is funny you should mention that, because Anne Tolley said: \u201CWe estimate that this measure will reduce repayment times of those who take up the bonus by 1.5 years, and we believe that it will decrease the upfront cost of new lending to 39.4c. How could anyone vote against that?\u201D. And now she is going to do exactly that. She is going to vote against it by voting to repeal it. It was a stupid thing to put in place in the first place. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000017\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003EThe Labour Party pointed out all of the flaws with it when it was first introduced. The Government ignored us, and now it has finally come round\u2014it has finally come round. I think I will give credit where credit is due: it is a good thing that it is doing away with this repayment bonus. It does not make any sense and it was a ridiculous thing to do in the first place.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022 data-id=\u0022ac7fa32954684349bbe80fd4d1285126\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000018\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ac7fa32954684349bbe80fd4d1285126\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader\u2014Labour):\u003C/span\u003E It is a pleasure to rise this morning to speak on Part 3 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. Mr Hipkins has just been discussing the folly of the Government in bringing this particular proposal forward. I note in the regulatory impact statement around Part 3 the following statement: \u201CThe voluntary repayment bonus is part of a wider student support package and is not a stand-alone policy.\u201D Never a truer word has been said in a regulatory impact statement, because the Government\u2019s overall student support package in this Budget is one where the message is very, very clear indeed: if you are from a low-income background, this Government does not want you undertaking postgraduate study. That is the message from the student support package in this Budget. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000019\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003ETo be absolutely clear about what the Government did yesterday, it said that student allowances will not be available for anyone studying postgraduate qualifications\u2014anyone at all\u2014from 2013. If we look at this measure as part of that package, as the regulatory impact statement tells us to do, we can see quite clearly that, in fact, Mr Joyce\u2019s answer to the people who say \u201CI cannot get a student allowance. How am I going to be able to do postgraduate study?\u201D is for them to take on more debt through the student loan scheme, which is the very thing that the Government told us it did not want. The very thing that is meant to sit at the heart of the so-called student support package is that there will actually now be more debt for students, if they are going to be able to carry on.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000020\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E A very important point on that is that students who currently receive an allowance for postgraduate study will in most cases be getting far more than the $171 a week that is paid out in the student loan scheme living costs component. So the overall package of student support, which this voluntary repayment bonus repeal is part of, is actually a package of declining support. It is actually restricting access to allowances and meaning that many people who would have been undertaking postgraduate study will not be doing so. That is a great shame. It is something that is going to limit the potential of many New Zealanders and add to the debts that they and their families have. It is a retrograde step and, as part of this wider package of student support, it is simply not on. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000021\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EThis particular measure in Part 3 is designed, we are told by the regulatory impact statement, to \u201Cencourage greater contribution to tertiary education costs from students who can most afford to pay and who are more likely to receive higher levels of private return from their study; and reduce unnecessary borrowing.\u201D Well, the very thing this package of student support will do is increase borrowing, and the notion is that a greater contribution to tertiary education costs comes from students who can most afford to pay. That is what this regulatory impact statement says\u2014\u201Cstudents who can most afford to pay\u201D. The students who are on student allowances now are people who cannot afford to pay for their postgraduate qualifications, and this Government is saying to those people: \u201CWe will not support you into postgraduate study.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EWe need more people going into postgraduate study. We want more people qualifying with master\u2019s degrees and PhDs to help grow the economy, but because there is nothing in this Budget about growing the economy anyway, this Government has said: \u201CWell, we are not going to bother with actually supporting people into those postgraduate qualifications.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000023\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EThe voluntary repayment bonus was, as my colleague Mr Hipkins said, brought in by the National Government in 2009. It decided that this would be a good way of getting borrowers to pay off their loans more quickly. I just want to note at that point John Key and Steven Joyce\u2019s recent conversion to the idea that the thing that will allow people to pay off their loans more quickly is the interest-free nature of the student loan scheme. That is something the Labour Government was heavily criticised for by National. John Key said he would oppose that policy with every bone in his body, but now he has realised that that is actually what is allowing people to pay off their loans quicker, because the scheme that National put up to try to get people to pay off their loans quicker actually did not work. In fact, the one thing that did work was the interest-free nature of it, but that was the goal of this. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000024\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EThe regulatory impact statement tells us that despite the fact that the goal of this policy was for people to pay off their loans more quickly, many borrowers who undertook it were actually already the very people who were paying off their loans quickly. The bonus, it says, is also encouraging some students to borrow when they do not need to do so. So the policy actually had exactly the opposite effect of what the Government said it wanted to do. The regulatory impact statement tells us: \u201CIn 2011, 2,611 borrowers repaid their student loans in the same year they borrowed,\u201D so, actually, they were gaming the system, which is what the Labour Party told the National Government would happen. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000025\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EIf the National Government wants people to pay off their loans more quickly, it should make tertiary education more affordable. It should actually support students to study. It should make sure that fees do not go up. It should give more people access to student allowances if it wants to make tertiary education more affordable, which is what it said was the goal of this policy. Instead, what it did was run up a policy that was doomed to failure. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000026\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EIt was not, as Mr Hipkins said, just Anne Tolley, Peter Dunne, and Louise Upston who were hugely behind this policy. John Key trumpeted it in a press release on 31 January 2008. He said he was announcing \u201Ca plan to help student loan holders get out of debt quicker.\u201D Well, that did not work out very well. He said: \u201CWe will keep interest-free student loans\u201D\u2014good on you, John, that is well done. \u201CMany have made long-term financial decisions on the basis of the current policy and\u201D\u2014this is what Mr Key said\u2014\u201Cwe want to ensure they can plan with certainty.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000027\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EThat is what John Key said in 2008. He said that this policy would be introduced so that students and their families could plan with certainty. Well, here we are, 3 years later. Certainty is out the window because the policy just did not work, but John Key said he wanted students to plan with certainty. That is not what happened. He said: \u201CWhat I\u2019ve announced today is aimed at helping borrowers get out of debt sooner,\u201D\u2014that did not happen\u2014\u201Cand give them certainty so they can plan.\u201D That did not happen. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000028\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EThen we have the following statement from John Key: \u201CNational has no intention of doing anything that impedes people from realizing their own educational ambitions.\u201D Let us read that again: \u201CNational has no intention of doing anything that impedes people from realizing their own educational ambitions.\u201D There are words for that that I am not allowed to use in this Chamber, but we can look at the Budget and it tells us for sure that the impeding of people achieving their educational ambitions will be happening as a result of this Budget if allowances are taken away from anyone trying to do postgraduate study. That impedes educational ambition. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000029\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EI have had students contacting me via social media and via email over the last 24 hours\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000030\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b33c8cee8a4a4907bf9c08aa13b04890\u0022\u003EHon Tau Henare\u003C/span\u003E: Prove it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000031\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227dff8d4a92f54755bac6b7ee1e7efa59\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: I can table them if you like, Mr Henare.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000032\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e246f89910434a6fad75a3cddcd10bfa\u0022\u003EHon Tau Henare\u003C/span\u003E: Go and get them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000033\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b30c70c6f7f142988bef73f483f5515c\u0022\u003EGRANT ROBERTSON\u003C/span\u003E: I will. I will do it for you later. I would like you, Mr Henare, to go and talk to some constituents\u2014you do not have an electorate any more\u2014and actually ask them about how this is going to impact on them. What this means for the students who have contacted me is that people part-way through master\u2019s programmes are now not going to be able to carry on. These are people who have families and who have planned for this. They are halfway through a master\u2019s programme, or a third of a way through a PhD programme, and they will not be able to get the allowances to allow them to carry on. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000034\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EMr Key tells us that National has no intention of doing anything that impedes people realising their own educational ambitions. This Budget impedes people realising their educational ambition. It increases the repayment rate on student loans. It says that student allowances are only for rich people to do a postgraduate qualification. That is what the message is from this Budget. Part 3 of this bill is part of a student support package that is actually about limiting the number of people who can go into tertiary education. Steven Joyce\u2019s goal from day one as Minister of Tertiary Education was to \u201Cdampen demand\u201D\u2014those were his words, \u201Cdampen demand\u201D\u2014for tertiary education. That is the opposite of what this country should be doing. This country should be encouraging more people into tertiary education, more people into training, and more people into postgraduate qualifications, but instead, this Government is determined to take money away from supporting students to do that. That is a great shame. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000035\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226007dc96-f459-4cdd-9972-4fde2c994088\u0022\u003EPart 3 of this bill repeals something the Government should never have done. It was a silly part of its package. But what it should really do is put forward proposals that actually enable participation and enable people to carry on with the study that they want to do, so that they can get qualifications that will get them higher incomes, that will support their families, and that will add to economic growth for New Zealand. We have seen none of that in this Budget from the Government. What we have seen is simply a proposal to get rid of a silly policy it had in the first place. I want to see a commitment from this Government to encouraging more people to do postgraduate qualifications. That will not happen.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022 data-id=\u0022b58dd06884094dd4818b25d75467bf19\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000036\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b58dd06884094dd4818b25d75467bf19\u0022\u003EANDREW LITTLE (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E I suppose we should be thankful that this is a Government that even 2 or 3 years after it introduced a meaningless provision has had the fortitude to step up and say it got it wrong and is going to change it back. But the fact we are doing this\u2014here we are, less than 24 hours after the introduction of this great, game-changing Budget, spending time now having to undo the unnecessary things that were done some years ago\u2014is symbolic, unfortunately, not only of what this Budget overall represents but of what this Government represents. It is tinkering around and faffing around the edges rather than doing anything meaningful and substantial. And if there is anything that is needed in our country today, particularly in tertiary education, it is to attract as many as we can to get there. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000037\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EIf there is one thing that New Zealand needs, like so many other countries in the grip of recession and in the grip of world-changing times, we actually need to be focusing on and investing in our young people, and building up our skills base, our education, and the talented people we have got. But what we have got is a Government that is not interested in that. It fiddles around the edges. It has introduced the other measure in terms of the student loan scheme that is going to put pressure on those at the lower-income end of the spectrum who are repaying loans. It was foreseen from the outset that this measure here would never have the effect or the impact that was claimed of it, and now it has to be undone.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000038\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E But of all the challenges facing this country, and after yesterday\u2019s Budget, what do we find ourselves\u2014on this bright, cheery Friday morning\u2014talking about? We are talking about undoing another of this Government\u2019s mistakes. Sadly, there are many more of them. There are many more mistakes that we should be undoing. But actually it takes away from what is most important, and that is doing the genuine, heavy-lifting work of making economic policy and social policy. That work is about rebuilding this nation and its people so that we can thrive and prosper in the future. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000039\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EThere is nothing in this part of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill that is going to address the very serious issues that we have got. So what is left to do in the time of this Parliament? It is to undo the measures that were brought in but were never going to have any meaningful or substantial impact, at all. That is what we are reduced to doing now. It is not as if there are not issues that are crying out for attention. It is not as if this is not a country that is crying out for a decent Budget. We have yet to see it. Yesterday\u2019s Budget does not cut the mustard and barely passes mark. It does nothing meaningful or substantial. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000040\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EWe have some big challenges ahead. Education and tertiary education lie at the heart of a programme that is about building a future for New Zealand and retaining our young people here. We look at the unprecedented numbers of people leaving the country\u201453,000 or 54,000 a year now\u2014and so many of them are our talented, young, skilled people. They take with them offshore the skills that we as a community have invested in. Whereas 20 or 30 years ago those people would have come back here with their international level of skills, the tragedy now is they are not coming back. We need a student loan scheme\u2014if we need one at all\u2014that does not create further incentives to lose our young people overseas. Instead of dealing with the real issues about tertiary education funding and financing, both of the student and of the institution, and instead of talking about the real issues of how we are going to improve or maximise tertiary education provision, we are left here in this mighty Parliament of Parliaments to talk about undoing measures\u2014silly measures\u2014that this Government knew at the time would not work. We now have to backtrack and get out of them. That is a tragedy. It is a travesty. It is symbolic of so much of what happens and passes for good lawmaking under this Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000041\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003EWe welcome this measure, but we understand the symbolism of it. It is disappointing that we have to spend our time and Budget time, at a time when this country is looking for genuine policy leadership and economic leadership, diverting our attention to these sorts of things. We support the measure, but let us not obscure the fact that it was pointless to begin with and it now has to be undone.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022 data-id=\u002294b8867fe064448c9af5b2677c9a65ac\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000042\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002294b8867fe064448c9af5b2677c9a65ac\u0022\u003EDr MEGAN WOODS (Labour\u2014Wigram):\u003C/span\u003E I am happy to take a call on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. As my colleagues have said, we are happy to support this, because this was legislation that was wrong from the outset. This was legislation that did not do anything to encourage tertiary education in this country. This was legislation that did nothing to improve us and lead us on the path to being an economy that was truly based on legislation. We see this as one small beacon of light in this legislation that we are debating this morning\u2014this very important legislation that we have come back under urgency to debate, which is about how we are going to fix our great nation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000043\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EWe are talking about the scrapping of a half-baked scheme that was doomed to fail. We are doing a fix-up here, but we are not seeing any great vision from National in this Budget to actually do anything to encourage education and the creation of an economy that is truly based on innovation. Instead, what we are seeing is some money put into the front end of science while we are treating the back end\u2014the people, our greatest resource in terms of innovation\u2014as an extractive industry.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000044\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003EApparently, what we do not want in this country now is postgraduate research. This is something that is not going to be encouraged. Actually, what we are going to do is set up a student allowance scheme that explicitly rules out doing that. We would not want to be educating the masses too much! That might lead to actually raising incomes, creating more jobs, and getting an economy that works!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000045\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225c01f679f8e64a129b2f3efdf67e5c34\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: You missed the fact that we\u2019re putting more money into the PBRS scheme.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000046\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b41544c798184c17b6da0e5db51e2cd7\u0022\u003EDr MEGAN WOODS\u003C/span\u003E: I have not missed the purpose of this bill, because what we are doing here is playing fix-up on legislation that was wrong-sighted, that was wrong from the outset. We will be back here soon playing fix-up on other legislation being introduced from this Budget that is going to do nothing to improve this country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000047\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E This is a half-baked bill. It is a total failure. I do note that the member opposite, Louise Upston, talked lyrically at the time of the bill\u2019s introduction about what a great piece of legislation this was. I am looking forward to her call on why it is that we need to get rid of it now. We are back here only 3 short years after it was introduced, so how long will it be until we are back here having to play fix-up on the other short-sighted measures that we are seeing in Budget 2012 from the National Government?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000048\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ae7d030363734ec188fcdf47edab3c6b\u0022\u003EDr David Clark\u003C/span\u003E: They don\u2019t even care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000049\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d8f91d10c8b94448be12146fb5321f0e\u0022\u003EDr MEGAN WOODS\u003C/span\u003E: Will we be back giving the money back to the paper boys? You are quite right there, David Clark. Will we be back saying that we are actually killing innovation in this country, we are not backing our young people, and we are doing nothing to create a brighter future? In fact, all we are doing is filling Air New Zealand\u2019s planes over to the Gold Coast. There is nothing in this Budget to keep people here. This is too little, too late\u2014a U-turn on what was a mistake 3 years ago. It does nothing to fix our economy. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u002231c619bf06e6452c8b9ee884a7aecffe\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000050\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002231c619bf06e6452c8b9ee884a7aecffe\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy)\u003C/span\u003E: I call the member Andrew Little\u2014sorry, Andrew Williams. Sorry, it is an early morning. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u00220c5093e3d5ef45cca8e3354e74121533\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000051\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00220c5093e3d5ef45cca8e3354e74121533\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Thank you, Mr Chairman, and I am not Mr Australia either. It is nice to stand and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on Part 3 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill in relation to the student loan scheme and the bonus payment programme. It was introduced by the National Government only in 2010, and now it is planning to remove it. It is symptomatic of, basically, a Government that is blundering along, muddling along, and really just not in charge of the train. And this train wreck seems to be just coming off the rails everywhere it turns. In this particular instance, the Government brought in something in 2010 without much thought, and it did not really work, it was not a great result, and now the Government overturns it. It is symptomatic of so many other things that this Government is doing. If the people of New Zealand, the public of New Zealand, were to analyse much of what this Government is doing, they would see the same thing time and time again. It is bringing in policies and trying out policies, and it is real hit-and-miss sort of stuff. As a result, there are big U-turns being taken left, right, and centre. This sends a very poor message, I believe, to the young people of New Zealand. Basically, how can they have faith in the Government of New Zealand\u2014or the National Government of New Zealand\u2014when it can bring in a policy one year, and a year or so later it just dumps it because it did not quite work out, where there has not been much analysis of it, and it has not really resulted in what it was expecting it would? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000052\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First has had a policy for some time now that would actually resolve the whole student loan problem. We put it out at the election, and it was greatly supported by young students all over New Zealand, who saw real merit in it. That was the dollar for dollar student loan scheme, where we would incentivise students and say that for every dollar they pay back, the Government would match them with another dollar. At the present time, when there is more than $12 billion in student loans sitting out there on the Government books, and when very, very little of the money is being recovered\u2014something like only a fraction is being recovered\u2014the New Zealand First scheme would ensure that we actually started to get most of that money back. Students would have an incentive: they would know that basically they can get rid of half of their loan if they get on and start paying it on a dollar for dollar scheme. It came with some caveats. It came with the caveat that when you completed your degree, you would have to stay in New Zealand and work, and repay that loan. You could not just wander off; you had to stay and work here to get that dollar for dollar scheme. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000053\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWhat that would do is ensure that our students and our graduates did have an incentive to stay in New Zealand\u2014we would keep their brains, keep their knowledge, keep their expertise in New Zealand\u2014and work in New Zealand. And\u2014and this is the win-win part of it\u2014of course, if they are working in New Zealand and they are paying tax, the very dollar that the Government would be providing to subsidise them in the student loan scheme, the very dollar that the Government would be helping them with on a dollar for dollar repayment scheme, would actually be coming out of the very taxes that they would be paying as a new working person within the New Zealand working environment. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000054\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002278eed72b23e244b2bad60d50725b5eeb\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy)\u003C/span\u003E: Just come back to Part 3. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000055\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002284705bede1804f7594cc18c69df9a658\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS\u003C/span\u003E: Well, no, it is very important, because what we are saying is that this is failed policy. This is failed policy, and it is proven that the Government has failed on this, and what we are saying is that this whole Budget is full of failed policies again. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000056\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EIt is a shame that this Government has not had the foresight to bring in some policies with vision, which would actually solve the problems. We could have vision in some of our policies, which would actually get on top of the problems, such as the policies that New Zealand First was expounding in terms of the student loan dollar for dollar scheme. Here we have students now marching in the streets in Auckland in relation to this, barricading Symonds Street, and up in arms. It is a sad thing in this world that we have now got to the stage where a Budget can result in young people marching in the streets because they are so dissatisfied with it. New Zealand First does not support this latest move by the Government. Again, it is an attack on our young people. It is not too different to the attack on the young paper boys and paper girls of this country. Basically this Government is going for the lowest form of resistance that it can. It is going after anybody it can attack and who cannot fight back: so it goes after the students, after the young people, after the families, after the elderly\u2014after all of those. But it leaves the Government\u2019s wealthy, rich, friendly mates exempt. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022 data-id=\u0022f1cb1843bf6b4c1dbe2b2685a6343ba5\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000057\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022f1cb1843bf6b4c1dbe2b2685a6343ba5\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING (Labour\u2014Rongotai):\u003C/span\u003E I had to get to my feet when I looked at this part of legislation that we are passing today under urgency. I had to do it, because this is the bright light of the Budget! This is the light at the end of the tunnel for us all, this particular clause, and that is why we are sitting here on Friday morning under urgency, changing a major mistake by National. This was the dopey idea of Steven Joyce, his dopey idea that was going to see wonderful things happen for students. They were going to pay back their loans faster, and New Zealand was going to be much better off. So I could not avoid speaking on it, when it is such a significant piece of legislation. Actually, it is one great big fat U-turn by this Government. I mean, Anne Tolley, the then Minister of Education, said \u201CHow could you vote against such a measure?\u201D. Then you read some of the other comments. I would like to read Louise Upston\u2019s. I am sure it has been read many times, but it does deserve another reading. She said: \u201CThis bill is a significant step to encourage student loan repayment and, more important, to reduce the overall repayment times. The message, very clearly, is our young people will be debt-free sooner,\u201D. Well, is that true? Has that happened? Of course it has not, and Labour told National at the time that it would not happen. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000058\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EAs for the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Revenue, who has been sent here to clean up Steven Joyce\u2019s mess, this is what he had to say: \u201CI say to the House that this is a significant incentive for students to pay their loans earlier. I cannot fathom why anyone would oppose the introduction of such an incentive.\u201D Well, I hope Peter Dunne has had the good grace to stand up on his hind legs and tell this Committee he made a mistake. I know that it would be rare for that Government to admit a mistake, but perhaps Peter Dunne would like to do that on behalf of Steven Joyce. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000059\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EYou see, the sad thing about this Budget is that this is the bright spot of the Budget, because when you look at everything else, you might as well say \u201CKiss your kids goodbye, Kiwis.\u201D I have to say that that is not just a slogan, because last night up in Kaikohe 600 people gathered for a meeting, the biggest meeting in 40 years, to see what jobs were available\u2014where? In Australia. Six hundred people gathered to see whether they could get a job in Australia. And there are three more meetings to be held: two up in Kait\u0101ia, and one just north of Whangarei. So people are looking to go elsewhere. Why? Because they are not getting a good deal from this Government. They are lining up to go to South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia. Why? Why stay and study here? If you do not believe what we are saying, why not look at some of the response today from young people around New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000060\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EWhat really gets to me is the fact that we are told that this Budget is called \u201CInvesting in our future\u201D. It is not a brighter future, now; we are now investing in our future. [Interruption] Well, where do you start, Sam? Where do you start? You start with your kids. You start with your young people, and you invest in those young people to ensure they have the skills to build a great country. That is what our grandparents did. That is what our parents did. They invested in us, and that is what we as parents have done for our kids. But not this Government! They have penalised young people. And what do people want to do? They want to go to Australia, because they will get a better deal there. I think it is a real shame that this Government cannot recognise that when you look to the long term you would have been investing in young people\u2019s education, from early childhood. You do not freeze early childhood education; you invest more into it to give them a good start. You invest in good class sizes, not small sizes for private schools only, where some of our members send their children. You invest in all children, and you invest in their tertiary education. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000061\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003ESome of us were lucky enough to get tertiary education where we were paid to study. Some of us were lucky enough to go to university where it did not cost as much at all. We would have thought if you were going to invest in a brighter future, or just even invest in a future, you would invest in our young people and our students. So, I have to say, this is the only bright spot. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. Well done! You made a mistake, and now you are admitting it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022febaa996112f4238ae33a6eaf0226bb3\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That Part 3 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 98\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 21\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EGreen Party 12; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EPart 3 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000062\u0022\u003EThe result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 97, Noes 21.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000063\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u002215fd0dd5498e482caa665bd63b80b19a\u0022\u003EClauses 1 and 2\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00225e1caccca5ba45bbb7cf48fc14671020\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 55\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EClause 1 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000064\u0022\u003EThe result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 63, Noes 55.\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022b431743664f149448dce7c05053e8282\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 55\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EClause 2 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022 data-id=\u00223fe79dbb95c14831b385321e8279a6c9\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000065\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223fe79dbb95c14831b385321e8279a6c9\u0022\u003ELOUISE UPSTON (Junior Whip\u2014National):\u003C/span\u003E I seek leave to amend the votes for the M\u0101ori Party in the last two votes cast before this; they should be three instead of two.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000066\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220242493944f34d3c801e14355eed9bcc\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy)\u003C/span\u003E: Leave is sought. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. Leave is granted.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u00225e8ed1b4cbc944dc816450ee474c492e\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000067\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225e8ed1b4cbc944dc816450ee474c492e\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue)\u003C/span\u003E on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Committee divide the bill into the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 31.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00228a3a249c30964c009eb70f685e48debd\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 55\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EMotion agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000068\u0022\u003EBill reported without amendment.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000069\u0022\u003EReport adopted.\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000070\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022e6002b50f65c4534b1e99091e33b173c\u0022\u003ETaxation (Budget Measures) Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000071\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u0022e6002b50f65c4534b1e99091e33b173c\u0022\u003EStudent Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000072\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u002276e08bb124114c03abe2de79ca106e07\u0022\u003EThird Readings\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022 data-id=\u00220ae544f5e7fa493ca372b7eb33af6981\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000073\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00220ae544f5e7fa493ca372b7eb33af6981\u0022\u003EHon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue)\u003C/span\u003E on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I will not delay the House unduly, but can I just recap that the main points of these two bills are as follows. Firstly, there is the repeal of tax credits for income under $9,880, which was introduced as a transitional measure in 1986 and has long since ceased to serve its purpose, and, secondly, the tax credit for childcare and housekeeper expenditure, which dates back to Depression times\u20141933\u2014and has even longer since ceased to be relevant to current circumstances. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000074\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EThere is the introduction of transitional arrangements to manage the repeal of these credits by allowing employers time to update their payroll systems, the replacement of the tax credit for the active income of children with a limited tax exemption\u2014again, this change is a transitional move put in place by Sir Robert Muldoon way back in 1978\u2014legislation to enact the change announced in March this year to the livestock valuation rules, and, finally, the repeal of the student loans voluntary repayment bonus. I should also point out that the detail of the livestock tax changes will be enacted separately later this year.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000075\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003E I need not report unduly from the Committee stage of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, except to say that it was a robust exchange around predictable issues, and I am not sure that any of the previously entrenched positions shifted at all during the course of the debate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000076\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f555a23a-d230-4f03-80ba-a44e6ec8bd29\u0022\u003EAs I close, I do want to acknowledge the work of the officials from the Inland Revenue Department, StudyLink, and the Ministry of Education who have worked on this legislation over a period of time. I want to thank them for their diligence, for their advice, and also for the pretty rigorous way in which they examined all of the issues before us. I am pleased that the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill are now going to proceed to their third readings. Once again, I commend them to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u0022e75ba77c45354bcfacf86d46ac857ce7\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000077\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e75ba77c45354bcfacf86d46ac857ce7\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E I rise to speak to the third readings of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, which Labour will oppose. We have had this legislation characterised correctly as picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls around the country. I think that has resonated with the wider public. They are realising that this Budget offers very little for ordinary New Zealanders who are feeling the squeeze. And now we have this kind of legislation going through, which, really, is plugging the odd gap here and there\u2014and that is at best. We certainly have seen that in the case of the changes to the student loan repayment scheme, where the Government is swallowing a rat. Far from being a flip-flop, the change is so fast that it has been described simply as a flop.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000078\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, as Mr Dunne has said, takes the money from low-earning children. It also makes some changes to the herd valuation election scheme, and that is a good change. That is a positive change that the Labour Party first mooted, and it is good to see National following through on that. I am afraid, though, there is little else to say about this legislation that is not a criticism, because it really is tinkering. It is tinkering at the edges. After a very short time into its second term, this National Government is reduced to that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000079\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThere is no bright vision in these particular tax bills. The Minister of Finance said this morning that he believes that spending is under control on the Government side, but that the revenue side is uncertain. This is an attempt to get that under control. We know that revenue has dropped from 35 percent of GDP down to 31 percent in the last couple of years as a result of changes that the Government has made. A good deal of that can be pinned back to the changes in the 2010 Budget, which saw the wealthiest 10 percent of New Zealanders get 44 percent of the value of those tax changes and the bottom 20 percent get just 2 percent of the value of those tax changes. That was designed, we are told, to stimulate the economy. Well, we know now that it was not revenue-neutral, because the economy has not been stimulated by that. When the wealthiest people get their tax rebate, their tax back, they tend to go on holidays or put it into savings. It does not stimulate the economy in the way that tax cuts for lower-income earners do. What we see here is a broadening of that. The Government is taking the money off low-income children who are perhaps working after school as cleaners, paper boys, paper girls, or pamphlet deliverers. These are not the people we should be pursuing. This is the not the Budget of pro-growth, free enterprise; this is the Budget of tinkering, and this bill backs up that particular agenda.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000080\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EI have spoken about the regulatory impact statement in previous debates on this legislation. We learn in the regulatory impact statement that in terms of the 68,000 children affected by the changes that will see money taken out of the pockets of paper boys, paper girls, couriers, and cleaners, businesses are likely to have an extra overhead. I think that is a point that just underscores the hopelessness of this measure. This particular legislation not only goes around chasing those who are earning below $2,340 a year but it then puts an extra overhead on the businesses having to collect that. This is ridiculous. This increase in compliance costs just shows where the National Government has got to. It is now making businesses pick the pockets of boys and girls around the country. It is a tragedy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000081\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe other thing that I noted in the regulatory impact statement, which I just have not had an opportunity to mention until now, is that it also has not been consulted on yet. Because this is such an urgent measure for the Government to get through, we have put it under urgency. It cannot even estimate the additional compliance on business, and I just do not think this can be best practice. The businesses carry this extra overhead and they do not even have an opportunity to express their discontent or suggest a more sensible way of doing it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000082\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThere is another point that falls out of this, which is that it effectively encourages the grey economy. Those employers who collect pay-as-you-earn tax will be encouraged to do so\u2014they will be encouraged to tax those low-income kids around the country. Those ones who do not do pay-as-you-earn tax\u2014the people mowing lawns next door or babysitting, and so on, who receive cash\u2014are not taxed. For a Government that talks about going after those areas of the grey economy, this is actually just completely the opposite. It is just unbelievable. So we have in front of us legislation that is not only ludicrous in its intent but it also imposes an extra cost on business. This is so far from a pro-growth policy and we could not get much further.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000083\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EI will touch briefly on the effect on students. We heard Ms Upston crying out in protest\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000084\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228b65c5fff01c4d1686424b6f3afca926\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: It is Mrs, actually\u2014Mrs Upston.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000085\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002210272477ec3f4f55b01bc21b0e8363d3\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: Mrs Upston\u2014my apologies, Mrs Upston. I must get her name right because we have got a quote coming up from her. Three years ago she described the changes being made in this legislation, and she said: \u201CThis bill is a significant step to encourage student loan repayment and, more important, to reduce the overall repayment times. The message, very clearly, is that our young people will be debt-free sooner,\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000086\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bc948d8e0eaf497faf18d3d31285b6a8\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229e39534800e644b684691b29329a25ca\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: Who said that? It was Mrs Upston. Mrs Upston said that just 3 years ago. And now this legislation is repealing exactly that action that she was saying, 3 years ago, was a good idea.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000088\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThis is the other thing we are doing with this legislation. We are repairing the mistakes of this Government. It is kind of crazy. So here we have not only extra costs to employers, and picking the pockets of our children, but we also have flip-flops\u2014we have flip-flops. The only thing we can say, apart from this, is that this is wider tinkering and it fits with the wider Government tax programme. We have a tax programme that was announced at the beginning of the year, which shows a tightening up of loopholes and trying to make sure that there are no exemptions here or there. This in fact encourages employers in some ways, as I have noted.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000089\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe goals of that tax programme are worthy. There is no doubt that we need a robust tax system. Every country needs one, and every Western country has one. But we need pro-growth tax policies. We actually need big changes if we are going to change the way our economy is structured. If we are going to support our exporters, if we are going to grow the economy, if we are going to afford to give our people the skills and training that will take New Zealand ahead, we need proper pro-growth tax policies. This Government, instead of doing that, is tinkering. It is urgently putting through measures to pick the pockets of the boys and girls of this country. That is not proper base-broadening. That is not vision. That is a backward step.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000090\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIf we are wishing to see the brighter future that has been promised us, we are going to need to change the Government. That is becoming more and more apparent, because there is no plan\u2014there is no plan\u2014there is only tinkering. At the moment we know that 50,000 people a year are leaving for Australia. This bill is not going to help that. If the paper boys and paper girls can save up enough of their money, after tax, they might be able to buy a ticket to get out of here. But maybe this measure will slow them down, because they are the only ones the Government can slow down from leaving the country. If these policies are light at the end of the tunnel, as perhaps they have been described by some\u2014I heard some saying this\u2014I think it is not really light at the end of the tunnel; it is in fact a train coming in the opposite direction.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022 data-id=\u0022048249eb5cb14054b9c1e639fa7a079c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000091\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022048249eb5cb14054b9c1e639fa7a079c\u0022\u003ETODD McCLAY (National\u2014Rotorua):\u003C/span\u003E I want to take only a brief call in this debate. But can I start by saying to the last speaker, David Clark, that his speech was factually, morally, and intellectually wrong on all counts. One day when we look back he will be judged on that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000092\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c0f78f60-c2fd-46f4-8138-72f39692fc20\u0022\u003EThis was a Budget that was extremely important for New Zealanders at an extremely important time. It was full of hope and it was full of direction. It was delivered to help us get back on to an even footing so that we would not end up like the countries overseas that the members opposite seem to want us to be like so much. The Budget will do a number of things. It will reform some outdated tax credits. It will abolish some issues around herd valuations on farms. It will make some important\u2014and I say important\u2014changes to the student loan scheme. What this will do over 4 years is save $349 million for New Zealanders, so that this Government can reinvest that in more productive areas of our economy. I say to the members opposite, if they believe that we should not be passing this legislation and we should be borrowing that extra $349 million, give up your seats, get off the list, get on the plane, and go to Greece.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022 data-id=\u0022596aace01f9f44c3b500bdbe953fb7e9\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000093\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022596aace01f9f44c3b500bdbe953fb7e9\u0022\u003EHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour\u2014New Lynn):\u003C/span\u003E Here we are in the dead of morning, on the morning after Budget day, urgently taxing toddlers\u2014urgently taxing toddlers. It is so important that we have suspended the Budget debate, suspended the normal business of the House, suspended all select committee process, and imposed retrospective tax legislation to turn the country round, on whom? Paper boys and paper girls are going to be pickpocketed by this Government. It is so laughable, so risible, so pathetic that it would be funny if it was not so sad. So sad because, as the nation\u2019s press has woken up, imagine the feeling in the Government\u2019s procedures room this morning when confronted by the headlines in the country\u2019s largest newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, \u201C[A] big fat zero Budget\u201D, zero ideas, and zero hope. In the nation\u2019s capital there is this charming cartoon in the Dominion Post of the most important feature of the Budget, which is what the Government is doing to the nation\u2019s children. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000094\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EIs it those members\u2019 best idea really\u2014is it really\u2014to take the nation\u2019s paper boys and shake their pockets, shake their pockets? Look at them squirming, look at them squirming. I almost\u2014almost\u2014feel sorry for them, but I say \u201Calmost\u201D, because I am looking at such charming Ministers as the Minister of Health and the Minister of Police and the feeling has strangely left me. The feeling has strangely left me. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000095\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EBefore the Budget came out there was speculation in the media that there were going to be some major, what they call, base-broadening measures, and this was an important little narrative for the Government to get out because of course Labour\u2019s pro-growth tax reform had been courageous and was well-received by both the business community and the general press. Labour campaigned in the last election on a pro-growth capital gains tax that would get money going where business investment needed it, and on a research and development tax credit, so this Budget was National\u2019s answer. It let the media know there were going to be pro-growth base-broadening measures, and here they are\u2014taxing toddlers by going for the pockets of paper boys and paper girls. Well, is that not just amazing. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000096\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EThe centrepiece of this Budget is the raiding of the piggy banks of 68,000 kids. It is hardly strategic, hardly fair, on some of the lowest-earning people in the country. But, as I said yesterday, the test of a Budget is not only what is in it. I think we have got common ground now, by the time we have got to the third reading of this legislation, for saying that that part of this legislation is just a joke, but we have not spent as much time talking about what else is in the legislation. I think, in fairness to the Government, it is appropriate to mention the two other significant\u2014well, that might be overstating it\u2014the two other measures in the legislation. The first one we might call the \u201CDavid Bennett special\u201D. There is a new member from the Waikato, a relatively new member, who has come here to earn a decent living, sustained only by the three dairy farms that he has had to disclose in the pecuniary interests register, and one wonders how such a young man has come into such largesse. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000097\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EI now understand it. I mean, I am not taking his personal finances as an example, as of course that would be inappropriate, but taking that kind of thing as an example, I dare say it was not because he was a paper boy when he was at school. Rather, I suspect, as a savvy Waikato accountant, he has made an art form of precisely the provision that it has taken this Government\u2014out of shame now\u20144 years to fix. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000098\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EHow do you like this, mum and dad workers in our cities? If you are a dairy farmer and the market is rising, you can classify your cows as capital so that you do not pay any tax on them when the price goes up. But\u2014but\u2014if the price starts going down, you can reclassify them as revenue and claim a tax loss on them. Then when the market goes up, what do you do? You classify them as capital so you do not pay tax. Why not? It is because we have no tax on capital or capital gains. Maybe that explains why a new member from the Waikato comes here with a mere three dairy farms in his back pocket. How come it took 4 years for the modicum of justice on that outrageous rural rort to be closed down? On that part of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill I actually agree with the Government, but I ask why we are doing this in year 4 when it should have been done in year 1. That is appalling. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000099\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EHere is the next bit: what National did do when it came in was its little Christmas present for the trust fund babies. The trust fund kids we were hearing about at breakfast are so outraged that they are going to march on Parliament. There is going to be a new group set up, called the trust fund babies action group\u2014TFAB. The trust fund babies action group is going to be marching against this last part of the legislation, the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I do not want to put too much weight on it, but here is the thing: the repayment bonus on a student loan. If you paid it off quickly because you had millions in the bank\u2014say you came from a dairy-farming community and you could afford to pay off your student loan\u2014that would have been great and you would have got a bonus from the Government for doing it. If you happened to be on the bones of your bum doing a paper round, which the Government is now taxing, to get by, or, as when I was student, pulling drinks or working in a shearing gang, you did not get the bonus. Thank God that has been closed down. That was a National initiative that was driven by greed, it did not work, and now it has had to admit it. Those are three things in the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The first one is a joke, the second one is 4 years too late, and the third one only corrects a mistake that they cravenly made themselves in the first year. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000100\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003ESo what is not in the bill? That is just as important, is it not\u2014what is not in this bill? This is the Budget tax legislation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000101\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a4e3cd5b5c394288aaaad4084cfef58b\u0022\u003EDr David Clark\u003C/span\u003E: Pro-growth tax policy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000102\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002283e282ca6cdc4712a4f98683207c158d\u0022\u003EHon DAVID CUNLIFFE\u003C/span\u003E: My colleague rightly said: \u201CPro-growth tax policy\u201D. Where is it? It is the elephant in the room. How can New Zealand have a zero Budget and ask for real cuts in the health system? There are massive health cuts coming\u2014Tony Ryall knows it. Why are we getting increased class sizes? Why are we going to be 1,000 teachers short? As Annette King knows, why are we cutting back on the provision of housing when we have a housing crisis around the country, and Government members are sitting on their fat bank balances and doing nothing about capital gains\u2014nothing about capital gains? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000103\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EWhy is it that of the 100 wealthiest New Zealanders, only 50 are on the top tax rate at all? It is because they have capital gains, tax free, and because they use all those fancy accountants\u2019 tricks like trusts and fancy company structures, and they do that to avoid paying tax. Pro-growth tax reform would tax capital gains, and it would sort out the trust rorts. Is there any of that in this Budget? No. Why? Why are we taxing paper boys, but not the big end of town? It is because they are too busy having private dinners with the Prime Minister, like Skycity Casino, wherein\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000104\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022405d7aa4e1ce428fb4a31ff704912300\u0022\u003EPeseta Sam Lotu-Iiga\u003C/span\u003E: What about Vector? What about Fonterra?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000105\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f6155b06bb334bbb969233e01196ae67\u0022\u003EHon DAVID CUNLIFFE\u003C/span\u003E: The \u201Cmember for Vodafone\u201D puts up his hand. That is Sam Lotu-Iiga, who as deputy chair of the Commerce Committee took an all-expenses-paid tour to Australia to see the footy, courtesy of Vodafone. Was that not good judgment? It is going to take a wee while to live that one down. But there is a much more important issue here, and it is this. We had a proper, transparent tender around that conference centre. Labour does not think it is the be-all and end-all, but at least there was a transparent process, until one party had a private dinner with the Prime Minister and he then intervened to stop it. That is no way to run a country\u2014that is no way to run a country. You end up looking like a banana republic. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000106\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003EI will go back to the bills. There are three measures in the legislation: the first of them is a joke, the second one is late, and the third one corrects a mistake of National\u2019s making. What is not in these bills? It is proper, thorough-going, capital gains taxation, pro-growth tax reform around research and development tax credits, and other measures to correct what are the big holes in the tax system. This is at best a wasted opportunity. For once I agree with the New Zealand Herald\u2014it is our big, fat, zero hope Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022 data-id=\u0022cfba5fb3767c4cf2830fc4fbb0c7773f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000107\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022cfba5fb3767c4cf2830fc4fbb0c7773f\u0022\u003EDr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):\u003C/span\u003E I have listened to the debate both in the first reading and the second reading to date, and in Committee. I have to say that nothing has been said yet to alter our substantive view of the Budget in general or these particular bills, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Nothing, indeed, has been said, I think, that would inspire us or the public to want to embrace Government policy on this. The Budget is touted as the most important event of the parliamentary year\u2014erroneously, it would seem, for the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, agonisingly dragged out last night, hit a new low. After the leaders\u2019 speeches, we descended, not for the first time, into the theatre of the absurd\u2014a robust exchange between entrenched positions, to quote the Minister Peter Dunne. If we can drag out the debate on this bill, when virtually its only aspect of interest is the pecuniary interests of paper boys, for 5 hours, as we are doing, when the importance of the general issue of the global ecology and the global economy and New Zealand\u2019s destiny within that is ignored, then pity the poor citizens of this realm. They are worth more than this.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000108\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EIn this exchange last night, what did we learn? We heard Labour call National members of Parliament clowns. We heard\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000109\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f9c512a8-d532-4ef9-ad51-0fe8d752a893\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002267cd2e56d0a3438282049a6f69231095\u0022\u003EHon Clayton Cosgrove\u003C/span\u003E: True.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000110\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d5cadc5711c64442a067be08b5f7bc16\u0022\u003EDr KENNEDY GRAHAM\u003C/span\u003E: Whatever the accuracy might be, it is out of order. We heard National describe one Labour MP as a bloody bigot, and none of this occasioned\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000111\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222db722b63d4b40c18157c466810b6795\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! Look, whatever members said, you cannot get around Speakers\u2019 rulings or the Standing Orders on using unparliamentary language by quoting someone.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000112\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220545dbb245e64193a443a749717e9cdf\u0022\u003EDr KENNEDY GRAHAM\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you, and I apologise for dragging down the House to such a low level. We heard National taunt Labour to tell the truth, which in itself was offensive and disorderly, and at least that one\u2014or its aftermath since National repeated the offence\u2014occasioned an apology, the sincerity of which was left hanging in the stagnant evening air of the wilting House of Representatives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000113\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EThe House last night was populated by a back row of bored minds and vacuous stares, with a continuous muffled uproar between the two trenches, punctuated by occasional outbursts of derision\u2014and that was just National. The evening was characterised by self-demeaning pack behaviour, characterised by an after-dinner cocktail of complacence, ignorance, and arrogance\u2014and that was just National. And we wonder why politicians are ranked so low in public esteem. The theatre of the absurd was marked by a series of ineluctable, predictable voting\u201464 to 57. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Government policy.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000114\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002292557bd5-0e66-473c-a6df-7d108e7822e3\u0022\u003EThere is a distinction in this House between the main parties and the other parties, between first past the post and MMP. It is as if there are two Houses in one\u2014first past the post and mixed-member proportional representation. It is not only the Green Party that seeks to constructively critique Government policy and offer an alternative budget. All parties on the cross benches aspire to be constructive\u2014Green, New Zealand First, and Mana\u2014yet those speeches were dismissed as excessively earnest or naive. Earnestness in the House of Representatives would be superior to the self-demeaning. Members of this legislature are enjoined and paid a decent salary to respect the dignity of the institution. The people who vote us in expect us to live up to that. Last night we mostly let them down. Suffice to consider that for the reasons that were substantively advanced in the first reading and the second reading, the Green Party will vote against this bill in the final third reading.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022 data-id=\u002288b2b976b55f4f6dbd9953402f6753b2\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000115\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002288b2b976b55f4f6dbd9953402f6753b2\u0022\u003EPAUL GOLDSMITH (National):\u003C/span\u003E It was like wading through a pool of porridge, listening to that previous speech. Aside from the grave and solemn speech of Dr Graham\u2014and I thank him for it\u2014we have had a lot of low-grade huffing and puffing from the other side of the House about this bill, that there has not been enough excitement in this Budget. What do they want? Do they want dancing bears and whirling dervishes? The burden of the Opposition, it seems to me, is boiled down to \u201Cmore\u201D. They want more. Labour wants to have more State taxing and spending, and Father Christmas distributing all his gifts. It is exactly that sort of pap that has got this country into the trouble we are in at the moment, and it has taken 4 years for this Government to try to get us back to a more stable, sensible, and well-grounded Budget. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000116\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003EThe centrepiece of this Budget, it seems to me, is staying the course. We outlined a clear and sensible direction in the 2010 Budget. We got the tax settings of this country right in the 2010 Budget, and now this Budget is about adjusting some of the areas to maintain the tax system and collect an extra $350 million over the next 4 years by tightening up a couple of loose loopholes. The three aspects we are dealing with here are livestock valuation rules, tax credits that made sense a few decades ago but are no longer fit for purpose, and cancelling the student loan repayment incentive, which did not prove to be successful. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000117\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002253f86481-33c1-48b2-893b-c11cc0bd673d\u0022\u003ELabour might be disappointed that there is not enough excitement, and some of the media might be, too, but most New Zealanders are busy getting on with their lives, getting on with it, reducing their debts, and being careful about spending. They know that that is what this Government is about and that is why they like it. That is why they are supporting this Government, and I commend this bill for its third reading. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u002297f8df1cc72b49c7bae7b3410bcd1901\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000118\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002297f8df1cc72b49c7bae7b3410bcd1901\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E I rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in relation to the Fagin \u201Cpick a pocket or two Budget\u201D of 2012. We only have to look at the headlines in our major dailies today to see what the response is from New Zealand, from the media, and from the general public as to this failed Budget from this failed National Government. One headline: \u201CBill English is looking down the back of the sofa for loose change\u2014raiding the kids\u2019 pocket money \u2026\u201D. Another quote: \u201C[it] is not fair, it is not sensible.\u201D Another headline: \u201CKids: Meet the taxman.\u201D And another one said that a \u201Cwafer-thin surplus\u201D is tipped for 2014-15. And the worst of all from the New Zealand Herald: \u201COur big fat zero Budget\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000119\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThis Government must be highly embarrassed that it is being absolutely flannelled by all quarters in relation to this Budget. This goes back to the Budget of 1991, which was very similar to this: the \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D under Ruth Richardson, who taught the current Minister of Finance, Bill English, his financial skills\u2014or lack of financial skills. That Budget in 1991 failed. It had many of the same essences that this Budget has of selling off assets, of hitting the weak and the defenceless, and propping up the wealthy and their rich mates. This Budget does the same. It attacks the poor, the people who can least afford it, the young children of this country, the students of this country, the families of this country, the working people of this country, and it leaves those who can afford to do more totally exempt. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000120\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThis Budget also looks to having a surplus in 2014-15 of a miserable $197 million, which is so close to the margin of error that basically it is another example of this Government\u2019s use of a dartboard: throw a dart, pick a figure, let us go for $197 million, it could be plus or minus $500 million on that\u2014it would not know, because it really does not know. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000121\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EFurther, today it is shown in the media that the current account deficit blows out to $15 billion and our net international investment position, which is the debt that New Zealand owes the world, goes to 80 percent of GDP. How can this country be proud of a record like that? How can this Government be proud of a record like that? When also the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association comes out and says that this is a poor Budget, that it is not providing step change to turn round the economy, and that it is not supporting exports. We require exports if this country is going to lift its act, and the fundamental problems such as a lack of export growth have once again gone ignored. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000122\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThis is a \u201Cnickel and dime Budget\u201D, this is attacking the children of this country and the families of this country, but it is not giving vision as to how we are going to lift our exports. The trade stats for this latest month, April, show that we are 17 percent down on our exports compared with April last year. That is an appalling figure\u201417 percent down on 12 months ago. Therefore this Government is sitting on its hands, it is playing around on the edges, it is playing around on the fridges\u2014fringes, and probably in the fridges\u2014and it is just basically navel-gazing. This Government is navel-gazing. It is playing with the pennies, and, as the Dominion Post says today, it is looking down the back of the sofa to try to find a few dollars here and a few dollars there. But it is not addressing the fundamentals of getting growth in this economy, providing jobs, providing employment, helping our exports, and getting incentives into our companies to grow the economy, grow the pie, and grow the taxation base that we have. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000123\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThis is an inward-looking, reverse-moving Budget that basically is taking New Zealand back to the future, back to the 1991 \u201Cmother of all Budgets\u201D of Ruth Richardson, and back to the days of the 1990s when National sold off its assets, sold off the silverware of New Zealanders, and sold off what we have built up as a nation. This is a very negative, penny-pinching, miserable Budget. The Minister of Finance should be ashamed of it. The Prime Minister, John Key, should be ashamed of it. The Ministers over there and the members of the National Government should be ashamed of it. I am sure they will be pleased to get away from the House this weekend and go back to their electorates to lick their wounds, because they will have to go back to face the music in their electorates. I am sure people over this weekend will be telling them what a miserable, miserable National Government this is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00226dc89bbf-c2ef-45c9-89e4-d2b5952d8d16\u0022 data-id=\u00223aae2d9f154c46eca6a12c3878733308\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000124\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00226dc89bbf-c2ef-45c9-89e4-d2b5952d8d16\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223aae2d9f154c46eca6a12c3878733308\u0022\u003EKANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National):\u003C/span\u003E Sat sri akaal, Mr Speaker. I stand to debate the third reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This is omnibus legislation. It deals with the livestock evaluation rules and removes three tax credits. It ensures that everyone pays their fair share of taxes. It ensures that loopholes will be closed and tax credits updated, which will create extra revenue over the next 4 years. The childcare and housekeepers\u2019 tax credits have been replaced by Working for Families and 20 hours\u2019 free early childhood education. They have been a major boost for families to elevate their incomes. Times have changed. Society has changed. The Government believes that its spending on the tax credits could be better directed to areas of higher need, and that is what this bill is doing. I commend these bills to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u0022ce863eedead6440cafbc0913851df7eb\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000125\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ce863eedead6440cafbc0913851df7eb\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Taloha ni, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you very much for the call in this the third reading of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. But I do not think I can leave the comments from the Green list member Kennedy Graham go unchecked. This is a House of Representatives, it should be a place of robust debate, it should be a place with colour, and I think that the fact we all just received a lecture from Mr Graham\u2014someone whom I have a lot of personal respect for\u2014may be just a little bit over the top. I think this place should be robust. I am sure the Assistant Speaker in the Chair at the moment may think that from time to time it may get a bit out of hand, but this should be a place where we should feel free to express ourselves in any way that we choose, as long as it is within the Standing Orders. But I will go back to the bill, now that I have dealt with Mr Graham\u2019s sermon. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000126\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EI think that this bill is a sorry sign that the Government lacks any real leadership in terms of an economic plan to make sure that we deal with some pretty serious issues that New Zealand faces. Instead of getting real leadership, I think, as Mr Winston Peters said yesterday, we have got reruns. We have got reruns of failed economic policies that are not going to do anything to address some of the serious issues that New Zealand faces. We have had the worst economic growth in 50 years. In fact, every week of the last 12 months 1,000 Kiwis have thought it better to get on a plane and head to Australia to make their living, usually with their families, than to stay in New Zealand, their country of origin, their country of birth. I think that is very sad. It is also very sad that there is no real leadership on the fact unemployment has risen by 52 percent in the 4 years that this National Government has been in power. So we have gone back to reruns of the last 20 years. It is almost like Star Trek\u2014this Government has gone where no Government has gone before. It has gone into the pay packets of our paper boys and our paper girls. It is very, very sad to see that we are passing legislation that targets those little critters who are out there\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000127\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f6c7650c4fe546d69b848e49db51135d\u0022\u003EIain Lees-Galloway\u003C/span\u003E: Bludgers!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000128\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228379dbb7cda94852b9d372ea65365e46\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014those bludgers\u2014who are delivering our papers and our pamphlets in our communities! \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000129\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EI just want to talk about a couple of people who are doing this job. There is a person in my electorate whose name is Mark James. His two young daughters go out every week and deliver this Porirua paper I have here. It is the Citylife Porirua News.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022dd8ab467071e4ea283ddc71aa7126c7f\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: A good newspaper.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000131\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f1aa40509e8f4a43826216478b66d32f\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: It is a very good newspaper. Every fortnight it runs a very excellent comment by its local member of Parliament! Mr James was to encourage his two young daughters to know the value of work, so they can earn some money and know the value of money.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000132\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a65d5ba0ba0b48238eb012f78500b5d8\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: Good parents.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000133\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d8f0dede143245b5bf414d1239a5e877\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: They are very, very good parents. Mr James is such a good parent, but in October last year his worst nightmare came true. The company that contracts his children to deliver these newspapers sent something to them that they did not want to deliver. It was this National Party leaflet. But because he is a professional, and he wants his kids to be professional, he said: \u201CCome on kids. Despite the fact that we don\u2019t want to deliver these, we\u2019re going to go out and deliver them.\u201D So they know about good work ethics. They are good, professional young kids, but this Government want to penny-pinch off them to the tune of $240 a year. How miserly can you get? Instead of real leadership on the big economic issues that matter to New Zealand we get penny-pinching on our paper girls and our paper boys around the country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000134\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe wanted real leadership. When people read their newspapers this morning\u2014the Dominion Post\u00B8 or the New Zealand Herald, or the Press, or the Otago Daily Times\u2014they wanted to see real leadership. But what are we debating here? We are debating a bill that removes three tax credits: the income under $9,880 tax credit, the housekeeper and childcare tax credit, the children\u2019s active income tax credit. It also deals with the abolition of elections to leave the herd valuation scheme. Mr Cunliffe has already mentioned that change in detail, so I will not go into it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000135\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226616724d36c64874beaa1006695d49f7\u0022\u003EIain Lees-Galloway\u003C/span\u003E: Bold stuff!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000136\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228e5390b01b124a818eaec5f613206d07\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: The Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill also abolishes the student loan repayment bonus scheme. Bold stuff! \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000137\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220bef4c70e62b412c9505359852559579\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: They didn\u2019t tell us about that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000138\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022035976f55e214bd9a48dd870000d5fb0\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Where was that mentioned in this National Party leaflet that was delivered by these young professionals in my electorate? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000139\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EI just turn to the changes that are made to the student loan scheme. It has been debated quite well in the Committee stage. We supported that move because we thought the repayment bonus was a daft thing to do initially, anyway. But I did want to point out some of the quotes from National when it passed this legislation. Anne Tolley said: \u201CWe estimate that this measure will reduce repayment times of those who take up the bonus by 1.5 years, and we believe that it will decrease the upfront cost of new lending to 39.4c.\u201D How could anyone vote against that? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000140\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003ENext we have Mrs Louise Upston, who said: \u201CThis bill is a significant step to encourage student loan repayment and, more important, to reduce the overall repayment times. The message, very clearly,\u201D\u2014and I will stress this\u2014\u201Cis that our young people will be debt-free sooner\u201D. Peter Dunne\u2014the Minister in the chair in the Committee stage\u2014said: \u201CI say to the House that this is a significant incentive for students to pay their loans earlier. I cannot fathom why anyone would oppose the introduction of such an incentive.\u201D But then the truth comes out\u2014in the regulatory impact statement for this bill. Under \u201CConclusion and recommendations\u201D it essentially says that they got it wrong: \u201CThe voluntary repayment bonus does not appear to be improving the value of the Student Loan Scheme. The bonus aims to encourage borrowers who were slow to repay to pay off their loan more quickly. However, many borrowers who were already paying back their loans quickly are also claiming the bonus.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000141\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EIt basically has not worked. It is what we said. So, finally, the penny drops for the Government. One of its big announcements in this Budget for real economic leadership is to do away with something that it should never have done in the first place. So where is the leadership? Where is the leadership from this Government in Budget 2012? We do not think there is any. We were asking serious questions of this Government in the Budget, but what we get is penny-pinching from our paper boys and paper girls. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000142\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThe next bill also shows how it is not just the young that it is targeting but also the old in our rest homes. We look forward to debating that issue in the House, because that was not really highlighted in the Budget speech. I trawled through with my highlighter hoping to get it out and say: \u201CWell, there it is. They are being quite upfront about this.\u201D But, no, there is not one mention in Bill English\u2019s speech about changing the threshold for residential homecare. There was not one mention at all. Where is the leadership on growth? Where is the leadership on growth? There is none. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000143\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe commend the fact that the Government has finally, again, recognised that research and development might be a good thing to do, but doing that 4 years after it scrapped the research and development tax credits just does not cut the mustard. It is 4 years too late\u2014sorry, National. It is 4 years too late. That is another good point. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000144\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EAs well as the changes to the student loan scheme, which we agree with in this legislation, this Government is going to make it harder for low and middle-income families to support their children who might be clever and want to do some postgraduate study. No\u2014the Government will not do that, because after the fourth year the student will have to go back to mum and dad and say: \u201CMum, dad, I\u2019m not getting the student allowance any more. Can I grab some food from the fridge? Can I bum 20 bucks so I can make sure that I can go and get to university tomorrow?\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000145\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EIs that good enough? Is that going to encourage our students who want to better their lives by going into postgraduate study? I do not think so. Essentially, there is no leadership in this legislation\u2014there is no leadership, at all. It is absolute tinkering. It is picking on our paper boys and paper girls. Where is the strategy for growth? Where is the plan to make sure we get people into jobs? It certainly is not in this legislation and it certainly was not in this Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022 data-id=\u00227028514566df47b094c8c08019df8cfa\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000146\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00227028514566df47b094c8c08019df8cfa\u0022\u003EMAGGIE BARRY (National\u2014North Shore):\u003C/span\u003E Well, what an unedifying spectacle that speech from Kris Faafoi was. We heard a Star Trek metaphor that actually was entirely appropriate, coming as it did from an inhabitant of \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D. We, unlike Labour, are able to plan and to boldly go where no one else has gone before, where Labour could not possibly envisage going. Our Budget looks to try to invest in the future. It builds on the economy, and it invests money in infrastructure that is going to deliver jobs\u2014an alien concept to the people who inhabit \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D. This, of course, is something we boldly address. We boldly go where Labour has never gone before. We are building a competitive economy. We are addressing the hard issues. We are not moving away into the shallow pool of nonsense headlines, of an obsessive focus on paper boys and pickpocketing, and all this other nonsense. I doubt very much whether, from the combined intellectual rigour of our opponents, they have even actually read the Budget, or have actually listened to it. They are leaderless, rudderless, and they have no plan. They are, indeed, aliens, and the Star Trek metaphor I think is well chosen by them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000147\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003ELooking at what we are doing with Budget 2012, it invests heavily in infrastructure, innovation, and skills, because we know that it is important to create a more productive and competitive economy that will give more jobs to people in this country. This is what we are doing. We have increased science and innovation funding right across government, to more than $1.3 billion in this next 2-year period. We have put in $166 million extra to develop the new Advanced Technology Institute. These are the places where the growth in the economy will come from. We have put in $60 million extra for National Science Challenges. These are matters of substance. These are matters of substance that the people who dwell in the shallow troughs, those on the opposing benches, cannot possibly acknowledge. They do not want to go beyond the headline grabbing and the superficial. They are to be pitied, and they are to be ignored. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000148\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003EThis legislation, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, as I said last night in the two opportunities I had to address it, does tidy up some mad old legislation that needs to be worked through. It makes the Inland Revenue Department a more streamlined and efficient organisation. It has been meticulously worked through. Some of the old, obsolete taxes have gone. That needs to happen. This Government is focused on growth and on tidying up legislation, and I commend these bills to the House. I think they are entirely worthwhile, and the arguments put forward from the Opposition are superficial, alien, and facile. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022ba6d390cffa7465a876c1880f3def185\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000149\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ba6d390cffa7465a876c1880f3def185\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Just before I call the next member, I advise members of the House that this is a split call, and the speakers will get a bell at 1 minute. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022 data-id=\u002245a996b6c5f6470b843892982eb0861d\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000150\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002245a996b6c5f6470b843892982eb0861d\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour\u2014Palmerston North):\u003C/span\u003E Frankly, I did not think that I would see the day when I would agree with Maggie Barry, but I do now. She said that this legislation repeals \u201Cmad old legislation\u201D. It repeals mad old legislation brought into place 2 or 3 years ago by that National Government over there to try to encourage students to pay off their loans faster. What an absolute failure of legislation it has been. It was a bad idea at the time, everybody knew that it was a bad idea at the time, and finally\u2014it has taken only 3 years\u2014the Government has figured out that its legislation was mad old legislation, in the words of Maggie Barry. The National Government has finally figured out that it needs to repeal those changes that it made just 3 years ago. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000151\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E The Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measure) Amendment Bill are an absolute admission of failure by this Government. They are an absolute admission of failure. The Government has failed to grow the economy. It has introduced a zero Budget with zero hope, zero ideas, zero ambition, and zero growth for this country. These bills are an admission that that zero Budget is an absolute failure for this country. The Government has been so poor at growing the economy that it now has to go hunting down the back of the couch. It has to tip the poor paper boys and paper girls on their heads and squeeze every last cent out of their pockets. It has to go and chase down the students.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000152\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EAnd not only is it repealing its mad old legislation for the students but also, of course, what we are seeing is that it is going to take away the student allowance for postgraduate students. Not 2 weeks after the Government announced that all teachers were going to have to have postgraduate qualifications, it is now announcing that if you want to do a postgraduate qualification, you have to do it without a student allowance. My goodness, National hates teachers. This Government hates teachers. It has told them that they are not high quality, and now it is telling them that if they want to get their qualification they are on their own. They are on their own. The Government is not going to support them. In fact, the Government is actively discouraging people from going into the teaching profession, with that cut to the student allowance.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000153\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EWhat are we talking about with this bill? Well, we are going to see the paper boys and paper girls taxed. Actually, Andrew Williams called this Budget the \u201CFagin Budget\u201D. You can just see the poor paper boy going to Mr Bill English and saying: \u201CPlease, sir, may I have some more?\u201D. It is poor old paper boy Oliver Twist. In fact, there are a few other Dickens novels that I think are appropriate for this Government and this Budget, such as Hard Times. That is a Dickens novel that I think sums up the situation in New Zealand, as well. Another is Great Expectations. How about Great Expectations? Every year the Prime Minister told us that the economy was going to grow, that there were going to be 170,000 more jobs; now it is 154,000 more jobs. It is shrinking\u2014it is shrinking. But the Government still has these great expectations that somehow by magic\u2014by magic\u2014everything is going to turn round.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000154\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002237a99b65-4919-4800-830d-3dd7c920d5cd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c1b49f1738f3421c90a22012f1b3fa92\u0022\u003EDr Megan Woods\u003C/span\u003E: A Tale of Two Cities?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000155\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229ad144a5a2114bf981e71c208214cdaf\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: A Tale of Two Cities\u2014well, indeed. From where I come from, Palmerston North, we think it is pretty much a tale of one city in this country: it is all about Auckland and roads of national significance. I am sorry, but it is all about roads of national significance. You are completely overlooked in the provinces\u2014no roads, no rail. The Government is not interested in what is happening in provinces like the Manawat\u016B, and it has run out of ideas.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000156\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E The best it can come up with is this penny-pinching legislation, which hammers the poor old paper boys and paper girls. They are copping it for the Government\u2019s failure. The Government is taking away a few housekeeping rebates. It is taking away childcare rebates as well. Gosh, has not the Government chosen some delightful people to pick on? Has it not gone after\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000157\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d3cf0e1313454b769fc75bc4e748e42c\u0022\u003EHon David Cunliffe\u003C/span\u003E: Middle New Zealand. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000158\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002292060e86d3894c98aa4d37f42dd10abd\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, middle New Zealand is getting absolutely hammered by this Government, because it has just failed, year after year after year, to meet any of the promises that the Prime Minister made, absolutely empty promises, not based on any facts. We told it so at the time. We told it so. It refused to believe us, but this legislation, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is an absolute admission of failure from this zero National Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022 data-id=\u002241b76bf199764f1fa4dcc3b3c7bbe9c3\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000159\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002241b76bf199764f1fa4dcc3b3c7bbe9c3\u0022\u003ECATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):\u003C/span\u003E T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Mr Speaker. T\u0113n\u0101 koutou e te Whare. I am pleased to take a call on these bills, the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, because I would like to continue the debate on the issue around poverty. I have just come from the Child Poverty Action Group breakfast. If you want to talk about urgency, let us talk about what is actually urgent, and it is not this legislation. We are in urgency while people are making really urgent decisions, like: \u201CWhich medicine shall I be able to purchase this week, out of the 12 life-supporting medicines that I need, because I can\u2019t pay the prescription charges?\u201D. Or: \u201CShall I have breakfast, or shall my children have breakfast?\u201D. Yesterday, as she walked to the House, I heard the Minister for Social Development say: \u201COh, it\u2019s just so boring.\u201D Well, I will tell you what is boring. It is boring to have to make a choice between whether you eat or your children eat, and then to turn on the television and see Parliament acting as if this was urgency and ignoring the really urgent issues\u2014and it does actually make me feel quite ashamed.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000160\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003EHowever, as they say in Star Trek: \u201CBeam me up, Scotty.\u201D I have just come from the real world, where people treat each other with respect. I do understand what the member Kris Faafoi was saying about behaviour in the House. The Green Party does not always keep its cool either. But we do not celebrate personal abuse, and what Dr Graham was trying to say was that the community has higher standards than we do, and that is a fact. The community has higher standards of behaviour than we do. At the Child Poverty Action Group breakfast this morning, when we talked about the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill, people were astonished that the bill that we were debating was about attacking some of the most vulnerable minors\u2014as in younger people\u2014through this bill. They were astonished that that was the kind of urgency we had gone into. I heard people speak about the real issues that are urgent in this country this morning, about the attack on welfare beneficiaries, and the rhetoric, which acts as if there are thousands of jobs out there when we know that there is no job creation plan, so we are going to punish and scapegoat people who cannot get the work that they are supposed to be looking for.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000161\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003EI heard students talking about what is going on, and they were amused by this legislation, because students opposed this measure when it came before the Education and Science Committee to change this measure. They knew it was not going to work, except to try to reward wealthy students. I am not going to attack the Government for making a mistake. I am glad that it humbly acknowledges that it was a mistake, and I am glad that it is changing that mistake. It is OK to get it wrong, as the Government does, but it is not OK to get it wrong on the big issues. What it has done in the Budget, as well as in one aspect of this legislation, is to get it very, very wrong. It has got it very, very wrong to say that selling assets will benefit the families and wh\u0101nau of Aotearoa. This morning I listened to people from the social sciences, from the university, from the student community, and from the front-line community services dealing with poverty, and they are very distressed because they are unpicking the Budget inch by inch, going through the rhetoric, and finding the cuts. So if you look at education and health, wherever there has been a gain, there has been a loss. They were calling this Budget the \u201Csmoke and mirrors Budget\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000162\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003EBut in terms of this bill, I would call it the \u201CFiddling while Rome Burns Bill\u201D, or the \u201CEmperors with No Clothes, and Being Deliberately Urgent about Non-urgent Matters Bill\u201D, because that is what we are doing. We are talking under urgency about issues that are minor, while the rest of the country is out there trying to unpick the rhetoric about what is actually going to happen to our access to food, access to rent, and access to medicine. The fact that people think this is a minor matter and that we can focus on a minor matter is an example of how privileged we are in this House. People with white gloves open doors for us. We earn good money and we have forgotten\u2014at least the Government has; some of the rest of us have not\u2014that the Budget and the very first bill we debate after the Budget should be about what really matters, which is whether our kids get to eat or not. That is the measure of a civilised community, and it is not supported in this bill, and it is not supported in the Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000163\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220ee528dc-7870-4553-95ed-5ec0cab60f07\u0022\u003EThe Green Party supports the changes to the rural rorting system for cows. Good on you. Great. We are pleased to see that you admit that you have made a mistake, but I am afraid that this legislation is fiddling while Rome burns, and people out there are burning. Kia ora. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022 data-id=\u00229ceae960d8c14ec5ac1a74c9665c7cde\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000164\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229ceae960d8c14ec5ac1a74c9665c7cde\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL (National\u2014Rodney):\u003C/span\u003E It is with great pleasure that I rise in support of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I have to say that this was a great Budget, and the reason why I know that it was a great Budget is that the only thing that Labour members have spoken about for the last day and a half is paper boys. If that is all that they can discuss, if that is the only thing they can find to criticise in this Budget, I know that it is a good Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000165\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003EBut what interests me even more is that yesterday I saw the Rt Hon Winston Peters get up, and he wailed on about this Budget, and he went right back to 1991. So, as a new member of Parliament, I went away and I decided to pull out Hansard, and I\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000166\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d0f46c63dfdb4293b59212abd40f9c3d\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: What happened? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000167\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222d1e47c3eef34726a5f169237f7625e3\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: I will tell you what happened. I could not believe it. Mr Peters voted for every one of the measures in the 1991 Budget\u2014every single one of those measures. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000168\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022116bb14425d941ec8cba0a1928ad497e\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: Oh!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000169\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225e8ffa75ab954382a1dba46293af9454\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: I know, but, no, it is true. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000170\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fbb7d151467b4cf8b9a0dc494b7b8c41\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: Not Winston!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000171\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c225023044b6499c871477f4287eff59\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, he did. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000172\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228473bccaf33b411fb410373e01ecc326\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: He voted for every one? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000173\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002230815f2a8bad4d6dad6bdcb99cb9a5a3\u0022\u003EMARK MITCHELL\u003C/span\u003E: He did. He voted for every single measure in the 1991 Budget. So when Mr Peters gets up and starts criticising, when he stands up with indignation, he needs\u2014he has got a very short memory\u2014to go back and check the facts. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000174\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002248a02a21-c1ac-4159-8789-485ad614bd01\u0022\u003EWhat I am proud about with this Budget is that it is going to continue on with our proud track record of delivering better health services. Our country is safer today than it was 4 years ago, and our economy is growing. When we came into Government we were facing never-ending deficits\u2014that was what we inherited from the Labour Party. Now we are heading towards a surplus in 2014 and 2015. You have only to look around the world to see what is going on, and to see that we\u2014this Government\u2014are doing everything right to keep New Zealand moving in the right direction. We will emerge as a stronger, better, and well-educated country. Thank you very much.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u002206b7638b55324cb69fb3f907f8c8466b\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill and the Student Loan Scheme (Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 53\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 10; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBills read a third time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000175\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u00223904a1082c9244759cb33e1434e06346\u0022\u003ESocial Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000176\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022a3d843a61d8045a0a1549fb818521f87\u0022\u003EFirst Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022 data-id=\u0022f3d02c96579044a7bf01b844cd4687c4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000177\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022f3d02c96579044a7bf01b844cd4687c4\u0022\u003EHon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. This bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to change the amount of the annual increases in the applicable asset thresholds used in determining the amount that residents in aged residential care are required to contribute to the cost of their care. Current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are replaced with Consumers Price Index indexation of the thresholds. If the resident\u2019s assets are equal to or below the applicable asset threshold, then they qualify for Government funding through the residential care subsidy to meet the cost of their care in a rest home or a continuing care hospital. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000178\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003EThis bill is a priority for this Government. It is an important piece of legislation that will ensure that the residential care subsidy is sustainable into the future, particularly as demand for long-term residential care for older people increases. I am pleased to be able to present this bill here today. I commend this bill to the House. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u0022e438e81cbbde437fb4840cdd1a234a85\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000179\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e438e81cbbde437fb4840cdd1a234a85\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Taloha ni, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for giving me the call at the first reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Labour will not be supporting this bill at this stage.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000180\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe oppose this bill because of the way it has come to the House. We listened very intently to the finance Minister\u2019s speech yesterday, and nowhere in that document could we find any reference to this change. But we do have a bill before the House that will impose a significant change to some of the elderly who are in residential care in New Zealand. So we do not believe that the Government\u2019s process around this has been transparent, and we are not happy that a significant number of people who we believe would want to submit this bill to a select committee hearing on this issue will not have the opportunity to do that, because this bill is being put through this House under urgency.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000181\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThe Minister, the Hon Paula Bennett, in her contribution\u2014a very brief contribution\u2014did mention that this was a priority for the Government. It is so much of a priority that there was no press release. There was no mention of this in the Budget speech at all. So we wonder why there was not any mention about\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000182\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e4dace6e2c08424f98c98d04661857b1\u0022\u003EHon Paula Bennett\u003C/span\u003E: It was in a press statement.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000183\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226a41e972d20144adba0eea148cdd7c49\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: I stand to be corrected. There may have been a press statement; we certainly have not seen it. But it was not a priority enough to make it into this document\u2014the Minister of Finance\u2019s speech that he made to the House yesterday.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000184\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe have already heard through the media that there is concern around this bill. Roy Reid from Grey Power has already said publicly that he is concerned about the moves that are being made in this bill. We believe that he should have the chance to make a submission to a select committee so he can give his opinion. I am sure that there will be opinions on both sides of the fence, and I did notice that there was a press release yesterday from Martin Taylor from the New Zealand Aged Care Association. So maybe Mr Taylor should also have his opportunity to make his contribution to this. This bill is going to affect a significant number of elderly people, and the fact that it is going to be rushed through this House under urgency, without people getting a chance to make a submission, we think is extremely bad process. It does deal with an issue that is going to be a very important issue going forward for New Zealand, but we do not believe it is a plan, as such, to deal with the increasing age of New Zealand\u2019s population. Again, it is another example of tinkering and a lack of leadership from this National Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000185\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis bill will affect the amount of money that some of our elderly will be able to have in terms of being able to get a residential care subsidy. So in this Budget, which we had before this House over the last 20 or so hours, we have seen the Government target the very, very young\u2014our paper boys and paper girls\u2014and, now, the very, very old. Although our paper boys and our paper girls may not be of voting age, our elderly certainly are, and certainly their families\u2014their sons and daughters and other family\u2014will be very concerned about some of the measures that are contained in this bill. Again, that is why we believe that the process is wrong and that those concerned families should have a chance to have their say in the select committee process.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000186\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EAs I said at the beginning of my contribution, we will not be supporting this bill. The process is bad. It is being rushed through under urgency in this House, not giving the families of those elderly people concerned the opportunity to have their say, not letting Grey Power\u2014a significant lobby group in this country\u2014have its say, and not letting the sector have its say as well. We believe they should have their say. We will not be supporting this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022 data-id=\u0022c539331e128a471088d220d58220ab34\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000187\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c539331e128a471088d220d58220ab34\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National\u2014Maungakiekie):\u003C/span\u003E Talofa lava in Samoan Language Week. I rise to support the Minister for Social Development in the first reading of this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I want to thank the Minister, who is sitting in front of me, for bringing this bill into the House. I thank her for her courage, her tenacity, her fortitude. She is bringing not only welfare reforms to this House but this bill as well, and that shows the vision and leadership of this Minister in what is one of the most difficult portfolio areas in Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000188\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EShe referred to the Social Security Act 1964 and amending that Act to change the threshold levels. Mr Faafoi asked why we are doing that. Well, he did not listen yesterday afternoon to the Budget speeches. The reason National is bringing these bills to the House is that we are acting responsibly in terms of managing this Government\u2019s finances and delivering better public services in tight financial times. Why is it a priority, Mr Faafoi? It is a priority because, as we all know, the demographics of New Zealand are changing, and as demand for residential care services increases, we need to meet that increased demand with prudence and with sustainable policies. So instead of annual increases the Consumers Price Index will set the threshold. We know that that is consistent with other indexed entitlements, like national superannuation, which is adjusted every year.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000189\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EIt is also to cover up for some of the profligate policies of the last Labour Government, in the early 2000s. It was looking for ways to spend money, and it introduced $10,000 annual increases in this threshold. Once again, it is a bill that delivers on covering up the bad mismanagement of the last Labour Government. What will it do fiscally? Simply, it will save just under $35 million over 4 years. Again, that is a demonstration of this Government\u2019s fiscal prudence and fiscal sustainability, and it has been brought to this House because this Government is about driving our economy back on the road to recovery and back into surplus. I recommend this bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022d92ebe67db5c401b8712f1f47f725fcb\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000190\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022d92ebe67db5c401b8712f1f47f725fcb\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: As it is Samoan Language Week, fa\u2018afetai lava. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u002243a6f8dbe1124d038769356e28ad4265\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000191\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002243a6f8dbe1124d038769356e28ad4265\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E Thank you for the opportunity to rise to speak to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The bill amends the thresholds used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care have to contribute towards the costs of their own care. The current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are proposed to be replaced with Consumers Price Index indexation of the thresholds.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThis will affect a couple of groups of people. Those in that category are those who have partners and those who do not, whose partners are either in aged residential care or not. Specifically, in clause 7 in Part 2 of the bill we read that schedule 27 is going to be amended, and the threshold\u2014the upper threshold, threshold A\u2014\u201Capplies to every resident assessed as requiring care\u2014(a) who has no spouse or partner; or (b) whose spouse or partner is also a resident assessed as requiring care; or (c) whose spouse or partner is not a resident assessed as requiring care but who has elected, under clause 2, to have Threshold A apply to him or her rather than Threshold B.\u201D Threshold B, the second threshold, is a lower threshold and applies to every resident who has a spouse or partner not assessed as requiring residential care and who, for some reason, has opted out of threshold A.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000193\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003ESo there will be elderly people facing difficult decisions in changing circumstances whom this policy affects. Members of the families of those people will also be interested in following what is going on here. It is actually a relatively small number of people, and the savings over a number of years are not enormous, but there are some savings. So there is an issue here that should properly be debated. So that sits before us. People eligible for the subsidy pay their income, less certain exempt amounts, for their care, and the residents\u2019 district health board pays the difference between what the residents pay and the contracted cost of their care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000194\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWe have seen the Government go after the paper boys in the previous bill; here we see it going after the most vulnerable elderly folk, and we see that these measures are required to be taken under urgency to take the economy to a different level, to turn the economy round. Well, I do not think that is so. I think it is more tinkering by the Government, but it is the kind of tinkering that does actually affect real people. It would be far better, in my view, to have a full and proper process around the progress of this bill, not a process whereby it simply slips through under the veil of urgency, when it is really not the measure that is going to turn the country round. Again, it is not a pro-growth tax policy; it is more tinkering by this Government. If we go through the history of this threshold, asset testing was introduced by the National Government in the 1990s. We can see where it was going with that. Following the 1999 election Labour introduced a big increase in the threshold, and later made sure that $10,000 chunks went in year after year to make sure that that threshold continued to rise. It is clear that National is wanting to reduce it; there is no question about that. Our quibble is really with the process on this matter\u2014our primary quibble\u2014because there is a real, genuine issue that sits behind this.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000195\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EOn the one hand you have got those who have worked hard, saved, and paid down a mortgage, and the incentives for them to do that are that they may well be able to pass on some of that to the next generation. There are many elderly folk out there who are proud of the fact that they have worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, saved, and paid down a mortgage, and they want to pass a little bit of that on to the next generation. So are we discouraging savings here? Is this what is going on here? Is the National Government against savings? Well, it pushed KiwiSaver out in the Budget, so we might be led to conclude that. On the other hand, we have got the issue of intergenerational wealth, and we do have here a subsidy that goes in and around our elderly folk\u2014those folk who do have assets. We have got to ask ourselves, when we have one of the more generous superannuation arrangements in the world, whether this is the right thing to be doing. Is this perhaps a good measure to make sure that we are supporting these people, but not supporting them more than we can afford?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000196\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003ESo there is a live debate there, but this Government does not want to have the debate. It does not want to invite people to come in and have their say. That is unfortunate. These people do have real lives, and this measure affects them and it affects their wider families. But for some reason this Government\u2014and Mr Woodhouse is yelling out, because he is one of those people who do not think that old people should have a say on this matter, and do not think that their families should have a say on this matter. It is a real disappointment. The answer is that the process is wrong. This does not need to be done in urgency. It is not going to turn the economy round, Mr Woodhouse, any more than picking the pockets of paper boys and paper girls in Dunedin will turn the economy round. It will not turn the economy round. It is a bill that tinkers, once again, but it is tinkering with real people\u2019s lives.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000197\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThe Labour Party will not support this bill, because we do not support the process that has been put down. We have a select committee process for a reason, and it is so that we can hear the views and the concerns of the people who will be affected by these measures. That is the proper process, and that should be happening. That should be happening. There is no reason for the National Government to crimp this process back, \u201Ccrimp\u201D being a word that we associate with the ACT Party, not the National Government necessarily\u2014but occasionally with some others. Let us leave my contribution there for today, but for saying there is a better way of doing this. There are better policies that could be put in place. It is a shame that we are having this debate here in this crimped down, shortened fashion, when the measure affects real lives and it is not going to change the economy. It is not addressing the real issues.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022231e6389d09449dd91272715a12e4a9e\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000198\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022231e6389d09449dd91272715a12e4a9e\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Before I call the next speaker, can I just remind members on my right that when they yell across the Chamber \u201Cyou\u201D they are referring to me.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022 data-id=\u0022fc79653f94ff42cb8f68c9ac6b54aaee\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000199\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022fc79653f94ff42cb8f68c9ac6b54aaee\u0022\u003EKEVIN HAGUE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Mr Speaker. Can I begin by remarking on one of the last things that the previous speaker, David Clark, said. He said he would leave his contribution on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill at that for today. But that is kind of the problem, is it not? Today is it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000200\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe reason that has been advanced by the Labour speakers so far for opposing this bill is one of the two substantive reasons that we in the Green Party will also oppose it. The process that is being pursued here is nothing short of abysmal, and shows a certain contempt for the New Zealand public. This is a policy that was not signalled by National prior to the election. It was not signalled by the Government in the months following the election. It was not signalled in the Budget speech. It is the kind of policy that now, today, as we face a bill that is to be progressed through all of its stages today, is going to rob a significant number of New Zealanders of their right to have a say about this issue. Of course, we understand that sometimes, following a Budget, there will be a need for urgency. There will be a need to progress a bill through all of its stages in order to ensure that changes to legislation come into place in a timely way, and that they are not avoided. I am a little surprised, for example, that the next bill that the House debates is not going to be progressed through all of its stages today. I would have thought, on the track record of Governments, that it would be a bill that would go through all of its stages today. But not this one. There is no need. There is no urgency surrounding the matters in this bill. There is no reason why it could not go to a select committee to give New Zealanders the opportunity to have a say about it. That is one of our reasons for opposing this bill. The process that the Government intends to follow is a completely wrong one.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000201\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EBut, unlike the comments of the Labour speakers that I have heard so far, we do not have an equivocal view about whether the measure that is outlined in this bill is a good one or not. We believe that it is entirely wrong. Although some of the media coverage of the bill so far has suggested that it is something of a cosmetic change, in fact, to the asset-testing threshold, we do not believe that to be the case. It is understandable, perhaps, that people will have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, because their opportunity to scrutinise what is planned has been so limited. But the reality is that rather than a cosmetic change, this bill in fact is a complete change of the policy setting around asset testing for aged residential care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000202\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EOur policy, the Green Party\u2019s policy, has always been to oppose asset testing for residential care, and I will go into the reasons for that in a moment. But we were certainly heartened by the Labour Government in, I think, the 2002-05 period, having campaigned on removing asset testing, setting about a process\u2014slower than we would have liked, but none the less a progressive process\u2014to remove asset testing. And that is the current policy setting. It is a policy setting towards progressive removal of asset testing for aged residential care. What this bill does is to change that policy setting from eventual removal of asset testing to, instead, freezing the asset-testing threshold at its current level. That is the effect of this bill. It is to freeze the asset-testing threshold where it currently stands. That is a complete change of policy, and we believe that it is one that New Zealanders ought to have had a say about. It is not cosmetic. It is entirely substantive.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000203\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe reasons to oppose asset testing are many. Probably the single greatest one is that, in fact, asset testing for aged residential care introduces age-related discrimination in the provision of State care. That has been the argument that has been advanced by Age Concern. It has been advanced by Grey Power. it has been advanced by the Green Party, and it has been advanced by many others. The argument is that this is effectively the only area of care or support from the State that is asset tested, and it is a form of discrimination based on age and it ought not to be.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000204\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003ESecondly, it is especially discriminatory for a couple who own assets collectively but one person of whom requires aged residential care. That is a second form of discrimination that ought to be scrutinised by a select committee but will not be, because of the process being followed around this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000205\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe third reason to oppose asset testing is that its effect is capricious. The reality is that those of us who are more resourceful in society will find ways of evading the asset test. Actually, it promotes behaviour to avoid the regime by those who are sufficiently well connected and knowledgable to be able to do so. That is not an appropriate basis for the policy being applied or not. So the effect of asset testing is capricious, and that is a bad principle in law.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000206\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe fourth reason\u2014and I certainly heard Dr Clark allude to this in his contribution\u2014is that another effect of an asset-testing regime is that it encourages people to not save. So it actually creates conflicting signals to ageing New Zealanders about whether they ought to be saving for their retirement or not. An asset-testing regime around aged residential care in fact encourages people to spend rather than save. I think it has been a mantra of, I believe, all political parties for quite some time now that that is the polar opposite of the effect that we are trying to encourage in our economy. So for picking up the 170 New Zealanders who will be picked up by this effect in its first year, actually we create an incentive that takes the economy in the wrong direction, which is away from saving and towards greater spending.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000207\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe last point that I want to make that is an argument against asset sales\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000208\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002227d4e6d750b54239812a2a77fecca512\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Asset sales?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000209\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227c1e8267189f49bb9d8ee89862b74706\u0022\u003EKEVIN HAGUE\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014well, it is an argument against asset sales, and maybe I will come to that\u2014or rather, against asset testing for aged residential care, is a point that has been made by Age Concern, and that is the point that as we move to an environment in which we wish to encourage ageing in place, where we want people to be able to remain in their own homes, or home-like environments, for as long as they possible can, we do not want aged residential care to become the norm. What happens with asset testing is that a person who has been living in their own home who moves into aged residential care and is subject to the asset test may well lose, therefore, the asset\u2014which is their own home\u2014that they are most likely to have. Then, should they no longer need residential care and be sufficiently independent to be able to live in their own home again, their own home is no longer there for them to move back into. So asset testing undermines our approach to aged care and to the health of older people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000210\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe last point I want to make at this point in the many debates that we will have over this measure today is that what this measure is about\u2014and the regulatory impact statement makes it clear\u2014is saving money for the Government. And that is because the Government has not allocated sufficient in the health budget for the health services required by New Zealanders. So it is instead taking the money that it needs for the new initiatives from other services. In this case, it is taking it from older New Zealanders, from older New Zealanders who have contributed to the care that they need through a lifetime of work, a lifetime of contribution, and that is unprincipled and wrong.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022 data-id=\u00229bfcc84b28be403db760db5fbeb93181\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000211\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229bfcc84b28be403db760db5fbeb93181\u0022\u003EMICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National):\u003C/span\u003E I was not going to take a call yet in the first reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, but I do think that the call by Dr Clark warrants something of a response. After a very long commentary, which sounded more like a political studies lecture, Dr Clark said two things. Well, he is a bit vexed. On the one hand, he said families should have the ability to pass on assets through the generations, but on the other hand, he asked whether the State should really pay for the care of the elderly when that happens. Well, that is a fair enough question to ask, I think, but Dr Clark needs to come off the fence and tell this House what he actually thinks. It is no longer enough to say \u201Con the one hand, and on the other hand\u201D. MPs are required to hold a view. I look forward in the second reading to hearing what his view is about whether there should be one or the other. But it is actually consistent with the dollar-each-way mantra that Labour has about this. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000212\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022\u003ERemember when we removed the gifting regime last year because it was completely irrelevant and was not working. What Labour members did not tell you in opposition to that legislation was that about 7 years ago, when they were passing regulations around the deprivation clauses in residential care subsidies, they could not bring themselves to allow families to gift off $54,000 to couples. That was not good enough for them. They had to make it $27,000. They completely unhooked the residential care subsidy tests from the gifting policy. This was a stupid policy\u2014stupid policy\u2014but now it does not really matter because the gifting regime has gone. But I suggest to the party on the other side that it needs to stop sitting on the fence, and tell this House what it really thinks about the regime overall, because this change is actually a very sensible way of dealing with the increase. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000213\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022\u003EWhen house prices are flattening and going down, an inflation adjustment will actually benefit those people in this system, in the short run. What happens in the long run, who knows. [Interruption] Relative to the value of their properties\u2014relative to the value of their properties. I reckon it is an excellent idea, and I support it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022 data-id=\u0022f8d9df45a2ba40d283bace50244760ff\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000214\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022f8d9df45a2ba40d283bace50244760ff\u0022\u003EDENIS O\u2019ROURKE (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E It is a pleasure to take this call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. There are one or two things I want to say about it and about the Budget as a whole. This is a penny-pinching measure, and it is symptomatic of the Government\u2019s whole approach to this Budget. It is making more elderly people in residential care pay more for their residential care, and sooner, by the indexation of asset thresholds. This will save very little. In the year 2012-13 it will save $4.5 million, in 2013-14 it will save $8.4 million, in 2014-15 it will save $12.4 million, and in 2015-16 it will save $16.4 million.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000215\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EIn terms of the Government\u2019s overall Budget over these years, this means actually very little. But for people in the last years of their lives, it means less access to their savings for the comforts that they should have during those years, it means earlier State dependence, and it means they are robbed of the pleasure of passing a financial legacy on to their family. That is something that is so important to so many of them. But this Government, of course, does not actually care about the elderly, at all. New Zealand First, on the other hand, has a well-deserved reputation for caring for the elderly and their needs.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000216\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EAs I said, this is a penny-pinching Budget. It attacks the most vulnerable people in our community, it does very little to stimulate the economy, and it does practically nothing to stimulate exports, despite the declared objectives of this Government. Rather than punishing the elderly, it should try to support them further, as this community as a whole should do. New Zealand First, therefore, does have policies along those directions, including a 10 percent discount on power bills for the elderly, and people with a SuperGold card, and free doctors\u2019 visits for the first year, and then a $10 cap for the years after that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000217\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EThose are the sorts of positive policies that New Zealand First has for the elderly, and what do we see from the National Government? We see not only nothing for the elderly, we see a policy of punishing the elderly, punishing paper boys, and providing nothing whatever for the low-income people in our community. The Prime Minister referred to \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D during his speech, but the architects of this Budget are from \u201CAsteroid National\u201D, a dull, lifeless rock from outer space, producing no life, no light, and no warmth, especially not for the elderly in our community. That asteroid is very much like this Budget in its approach. Like an asteroid, National and this Government go endlessly round and round in circles. The underlying policies\u2014asset sales, austerity, especially for the elderly and low-income earners, and an obsession with an early surplus, for no good apparent reason\u2014are the same failed policies from the past. They did not work in National\u2019s Ruth Richardson Budget, the mother of all austerity Budgets, and they will not work now.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000218\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EThis Minister of Finance is like a witch doctor trying to give life to the undead and producing zombie policies\u2014policies more dead than alive. These policies will not work, because they are really about the Government\u2019s financial and political objectives. They are not about people and their welfare. They are not about communities and their viability. They are not about the elderly, who are ignored in this Budget except by being punished in the same way that we see in this particular bill. They are not about students, who will find it harder to manage their student loans under this Budget. It is not about stimulating employment. In fact, without the economic windfall of the Christchurch earthquakes, with the thousands of short-term jobs provided by that, employment under this Government would get worse and worse and worse. It is bad enough already.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000219\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EThis bill and this Budget are all about political economics. It is 2 years of excessive austerity as a surrogate for genuine financial management, with all the damage that does to people, young and old, as we see in this particular bill. Then, after 2 years of unnecessary pain, the Government plans a small surplus. This is solely for election-year purposes. No doubt in that year, National will find some lollies, but not for low-income people, not for the elderly\u2014for National supporters only. So National\u2019s approach is to punish the paper boys and to punish the elderly and low-income people, so that in 2014-15 there can be some lollies for National\u2019s mates.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000220\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EThe leader of the Government\u2019s political economics is the Prime Minister, John Key\u2014always richer in politics than economics. He cast an aspersion on Mr Shearer when David Shearer\u2019s slip of the tongue referred to Mr Speaker as \u201CMr Australia\u201D. But that was misdirected. It is the Prime Minister who should be \u201CMr Australia\u201D, because he is the principal cause of the exit of thousands of talented young Kiwis to Australia. They have no confidence in him or his Government\u2019s policies\u2014especially in this Budget. The Budget will produce no real long-term jobs, no real growth, no worthwhile assistance with housing, and it will punish people with student loans. There is no mention of anything positive in this Budget for the elderly at all. In fact, this bill, which punishes only the elderly, is the only reference to the elderly in the entire Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000221\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EIn response to these failing policies, all we get are the tired old excuses of recession from 2008, 4 years ago; the global financial crisis, also originating years ago; and the Christchurch earthquakes. Those are three tired old excuses for these failed policies. But this Government has had over 3 years to deal with the recession, and the global financial crisis has in fact had a limited direct effect on the New Zealand economy. In fact, the Christchurch earthquake recovery is actually funded more by insurance money and, to a lesser extent, by $5 billion to $6 billion from Government borrowing.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000222\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EIt is very, very difficult to see why measures that are set out in this bill are really required at all, when you see the magnitude of the issues facing this country. The small amount of money that will be saved is penny-pinching, when the elderly should be more supported by our community. This Government\u2019s failed policies, relying on tired old excuses for not doing more, will not advance this community and this nation at all. We see that right throughout the Budget. It is a failed Budget. It is an old-fashioned Budget. It is a penny-pinching Budget that we can do without.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022 data-id=\u0022b339b69da2e24465b9a6a936af305458\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000223\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b339b69da2e24465b9a6a936af305458\u0022\u003ETIM MACINDOE (National\u2014Hamilton West):\u003C/span\u003E What an extraordinary contribution we have just had from that member, Denis O\u2019Rourke. We have now got it on the record that New Zealand First does not want New Zealand to be back in surplus. That was one of his most memorable comments. Another one, a quick question for Mr O\u2019Rourke: which way did Winston Peters vote on the 1991 Budget\u2014yes or no? Winston Peters\u2014yes or no for the 1991 Budget? Those members are deafening in their inability to answer that question. The only thing that was getting worse and worse about that particular contribution was the member\u2019s speech.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000224\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003ELet us turn our attention to the Labour Party. We have had Kris Faafoi leading off, telling us that the Labour Party will oppose this measure, not because it cares about the policy in it but because it does not like the process. There was no engagement with the significant challenges that our rapidly escalating older population put before us, and no engagement with any of the Budget at all\u2014just saying \u201CWe don\u2019t like the process.\u201D Then we had Dr David Clark read to us, at length, what is in the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. In fact, he read to us for such a long time that he forgot to tell us what he actually thought about it. When he was asked to state an opinion, he came back with that old chestnut \u201CWe don\u2019t like the process.\u201D, and he is still over there, warbling away. He will not actually tell us what he thinks of the bill. Well, I want to tell both Dr Clark and Mr Faafoi\u2014and Mr O\u2019Rourke, for that matter\u2014that there is nothing unusual at all about the fact that here we are in urgency, the day after a Budget, considering tax changes, because actually that is what always happens. That is what Governments do. It even happened when the Labour Government was in power. But what was the one difference? The difference was that Labour was always pushing the taxes up, and we are trying to do something a little better than that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000225\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003EThis bill will create savings of nearly $35 million over a 4-year period, which we will then reinvest in critical health care. It will quite sensibly ensure that from 1 July this year the Government can begin adjusting the asset threshold for rest home subsidies at the rate of inflation. Well, what is wrong with that? Why would you not want to do that? This is responsible governing, in very challenging times. It recognises our responsibility to respond to the rapid increase in our older population\u2014and not just because New Zealand First is back in Parliament. It is an appropriate aspect of a Budget that I am proud to support, and I encourage all the members opposite to change the habit of a lifetime and to support it, because it makes sense.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022 data-id=\u0022eeed9f93c40f4065b757551776262d08\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000226\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022eeed9f93c40f4065b757551776262d08\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON (Labour\u2014Port Hills):\u003C/span\u003E I want to begin by extending my sympathy to the Minister for Social Development, who introduced this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, by delivering a 3-minute speech. I have never ever in my years in Parliament seen a Minister less enthusiastic about legislation in her name. I notice that she is not even able to continue contributing to the debate. She did interject, though\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000227\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d611dd274014447f9d395978d00638bd\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! The member knows she cannot refer\u2014when the member said the Minister would not contribute, there was an inference that the Minister had left the Chamber. Just be careful.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000228\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002274ec3667c7944d7c96b658c35995effa\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You inferred it; she did not.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000229\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022dcac3cdfd1204ca6a6437c4286ca7f07\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: No, I am just saying to be careful in the future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000230\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022eb5e2a3a9faa4879bb25438b877bf464\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: The Minister, however, in an interjection, did refer to a press statement that had been made on this issue. I invite the Minister to table the press statement, which may have been in her name\u2014that would be logical, as she is the Minister who introduced the legislation. It may have been in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall, the Minister of Health. It may have been in the name of the Hon Jo Goodhew, the Minister for Senior Citizens. But whoever\u2019s name the press statement is in, they should go back to their office and tell their press secretary to put it on the National Party website, alongside every other statement that has been issued in relation to the Budget. Jo Goodhew, who is now claiming credit for this asset-testing legislation, must have forgotten to get her press statement put on the New Zealand National Party website, because it is not there. So either Paula Bennett made a mistake in saying that a press statement was released in relation to this bill, or her press secretary has forgotten to put it on the National Party website.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000231\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e82d23f8aebc418cbe8f9bc9802f86fa\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: They forgot to put it in the packs that were given out to the media yesterday.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000232\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022914972aeca164da1acc463c501dc61df\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: It was not in the packs given to the media, my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has reminded me. It was not in the Budget speech delivered by Bill English earlier. It has not been mentioned anywhere, but suddenly under urgency we are introducing legislation that, in my view, breaches the contract, at the least, that has been made with 170 people who are currently in residential care who went into residential care on the understanding that they would be subject to the legislative asset-testing regime. Those 170 people deserve an apology from the Government, in my view. But if that is too good for the Government to offer, at the very least they deserve an opportunity to have their say before a select committee. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000233\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThe Minister for Social Development in her introductory speech said that this legislation was necessary for the sustainability of the asset-testing regime. In this financial year it will save $4.5 million. The Government will spend $94 billion in the coming financial year. If it is necessary for the sustainability of this regime to save $4 million, then this Government has put us into a bigger financial crisis than any of us has imagined. We had earlier in this debate around the Budget the tragic sight of Bill English turning the poor old paper deliverers upside down and shaking them to get their few cents\u2019 worth of tax money out of them, and now we see the same Minister saying to the elderly of New Zealand: \u201CThere is nothing for you in this Budget, but, actually, can we have $4.5 million out of your pocket this year so that we can continue giving tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders?\u201D. Budgets are about choices. There are always limits on what can be spent. That is what Budget decisions are about. But to pretend that this is necessary for the financial sustainability of the asset-testing regime beggars belief, and Minister Bennett should be ashamed of herself.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000234\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003ETim Macindoe in his equally short and thoughtless contribution on this debate\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000235\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c35a2c26f4774850a72170a6d7f4b027\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: It was one of his better ones, though.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000236\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b76d3ee22e634bbdbd340100236c1841\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014it was one of his better speeches\u2014referred to the aged being an increasing percentage of the population in New Zealand as a problem. Well, he is part of that problem. He is part of the generation that will increase the percentage of total people in New Zealand who are older.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000237\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229cb38a28d22c45738d7c3249b1710ff4\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: None of us are getting younger.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000238\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002299775fdf64a647279dd633f580b1d156\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: I agree with him on that point. He is a problem. People in the Waikato have been referring to him in that way for some time. But I do not consider that this is a problem that we should, therefore, park on the sidelines and say: \u201CLet\u2019s get money out of them.\u201D The fact that we in New Zealand will have an increasing percentage of our population who are older should be celebrated, because it means we have improved the health and well-being of people. We need to ensure that those people have genuine choices about what they do and how they participate in our society. They should be respected, not classified as a problem and then used as a way of penny-pinching and getting money to pay for other things that the Government has chosen to pay for. The sum of $4.5 million is not going to save New Zealand, nor will it be part of a great vision for economic growth and prosperity. The Dominion Post editorial got it right this morning when it said: \u201CLoose change won\u2019t pay the bills\u201D. It was referring to the tax grab by the Government from the poor old paper deliverers. The youngest kids in our society who are working are now having to pay tax. The Dominion Post tomorrow should repeat the headline, but talk about the difference that the $4.5 million that this Government is penny-pinching under urgency in its change to the asset-testing regime will make.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000239\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E As I said earlier, I do not think this move is going to solve any issues at all that New Zealand is facing. It should not be a move that is considered under urgency. We should give older New Zealanders the decency and respect that they deserve and at least refer this legislation to a select committee. Other colleagues from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Green Party have made very important contributions about the nature of this debate. A select committee would enjoy that debate, because it is an important one to be held. This bill being introduced under urgency and passed through all stages is the biggest mark of disrespect that older New Zealanders could have, and I say to the Minister responsible, Paula Bennett, and to the Minister for Senior Citizens, Jo Goodhew, that they should be ashamed of this move.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022 data-id=\u0022e6a66d75a2c54df59de84a3df6d09f02\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000240\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e6a66d75a2c54df59de84a3df6d09f02\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO (National):\u003C/span\u003E As a new member of Parliament, I stand in respect of older members of Parliament, more experienced members of Parliament, for the things that they say. I take them very seriously. But I now start to think about the credibility of the things that were just said by the member Ruth Dyson, and I take her to account for talking about the lack of transparency, the lack of engagement, and the lack of consultation. If this member was to look even now on the National Party website, she would find the information there. On the Ministry of Health website, those members would find the information there, and on the Beehive website, they would find the information there. But here goes, it gets even better. In the press release from Minister Ryall, it was there. But here are the Ginsu knives. Here are the Ginsu knives. You will be saying this: did we consult\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000241\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221b7e842ec87a41fdbedf06a94cff0258\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000242\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225a4ff3cadedd4edc975e29aa8138cb4c\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014did we consult? This is what we did\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000243\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022eb47d834de9246c8b80cbe5db4d26a9c\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! When I stand, you sit.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000244\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221d82e82e4c8c4864b4c753159ed50663\u0022\u003EHon Jo Goodhew\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am absolutely certain that I am hearing a chant from the other side of \u201Clies\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000245\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002219812674325c46229dccc62b5b44d413\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I am the judge of that, and Alfred Ngaro will continue.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000246\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227e3f28f41465406aba92a469fdadc422\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you, Mr Speaker. But here are the Ginsu knives for you. The word \u201Cconsult\u201D was what your lips would be saying, so this was what the National Government did. An hour before the Budget was released there was a conversation with, who else, Grey Power. That is right\u2014Grey Power.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000247\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003EThere has been a lot of talk about \u201CWhere is the plan?\u201D\u2014somebody talking about \u201CWhere is the plan?\u201D. Well, you know, we talk about \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D, and I wanted to find out where \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D was. So I went to the portal. Here is the portal: it is the Labour Party website. When I went to the portal, when I went to the Labour Party website, guess what I found? It said that it was an organisation in review. It was going out to ask\u2014who? Its members. Do you know why? Because it wanted their views. Here is what it said: \u201CWe want your party for your views for our future.\u201D But it gets even better. On the website the leader of the Labour Party is there, Mr David Shearer. What is he doing? He is playing a guitar. I think he is singing the song \u201CTen Guitars\u201D. Hang on, I have just heard a newsflash: it is now \u201CNine Guitars\u201D. That is right. It is no longer \u201CTen Guitars\u201D; it is \u201CNine Guitars\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000248\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003EOK, back to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This bill is about responsibility, this bill is about sustainability, and, most important, this bill is about continuing to subsidise the needs of our older people. It is about increasing Government spending by $82.4 million. I could keep going on and on, but I think the point serves itself. We support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022 data-id=\u0022b166db0bce0843f49d885df382ff1656\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000249\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b166db0bce0843f49d885df382ff1656\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour\u2014Hutt South):\u003C/span\u003E Normally, people who get to lead the Address in Reply debate are seen to be people of substance, people of principle, and people who are used\u2014[Interruption] No, I went last. I went last in my group in 1984. But we have just had the second speech in the House from that member, Alfred Ngaro, and we understand why the gap between the two was so long, listening to that. This bill\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000250\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e436f49ace3d49ebbb23caf6a7acb942\u0022\u003EAlfred Ngaro\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is incorrect. Actually, this is my fifth speech\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000251\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022623b49222b2e48aab0eed86de8926441\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: No, that is not a point of order.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000252\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a934caf814e74e9fbe4b74dd8b9bb26d\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: The member reinforces the point of how much substance he is bringing to the House and how forgettable he is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000253\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EThe point that I want to make to the House is that this is the legislation of the people who do not have the fortitude to make the big decisions. John Key puts all his assets in a trust and then says he will not look at the superannuation age. He puts his assets in a trust to avoid this legislation, and then attacks the poor people of Wainui\u014Dmata, who save up and get a house that is worth $200,000. That is the approach of the National Government. It shakes down the paper boys and paper girls.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000254\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EThere is another thing that we have not got to yet. The group National has hit the most is the disabled people who deliver brochures. The disabled who push their pushchairs around, who are contractors, who work more than 20 hours per week, and who do not get a daily rate have lost their exemptions\u2014they have lost their exemptions. So it is the young, it is the old, it is the poor, and it is the disabled who are being attacked by this Government. Do Government members have the bravery, do they have courage, do they have the gumption to send the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill to a select committee? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000255\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002247d40aabfd444f709ee4afbc13e8f352\u0022\u003EChris Hipkins\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000256\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d33b95b399834d08ac536c02419165b8\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Do they?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000257\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225fbb44a30f2c4b69b6247fa3b99ad6ee\u0022\u003EChris Hipkins\u003C/span\u003E: No.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000258\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225aedbc23c504461f8085f59b9ec341b7\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: No, they do not. They are not prepared to have people who have saved up for their $220,000 house and paid the mortgage off over 50 or 60 years come to Parliament to a select committee to have their say.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000259\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003ESo afraid were they that they did not include this bill on the Table of the House during the Budget speech yesterday. They did not put the press statement in the media pack yesterday. They hid it. They hid it. It was secret legislation. They did not put it on their website until this morning, because they are not prepared to front up to Kiwis. It is a secret agenda. It might be a small secret agenda, but it is a secret attack on older New Zealanders. I do not know, maybe we do have to go back to Muldoon, or Bolger, or even Shipley. They would have had the guts to stand up in this Parliament, as part of the Budget\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000260\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002234e3533d348c4f2c9c152429e672b459\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! I do not think that is a good term to use, that phrase, so the member should just bear this in mind, and also you must use full names when you are referring to people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000261\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002286665f2a0ef147b5a2f7ef7dd1df274c\u0022\u003EHon TREVOR MALLARD\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Assistant Speaker, I think we have always been allowed to refer to former politicians by their surnames.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000262\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003EMuldoon, Shipley, and Bolger would have always had the guts to stand up in here. They would have stood up in here if they had a policy like that, and they would have said \u201CThis is our policy, and we are prepared to go to the people in an election, and we are prepared to go to a select committee in order to debate this.\u201D But what have we here? We are not allowed to use the words that properly describe the members opposite. They are the people whom, if I were going into the trenches, I would not want beside me. I would not want them beside me, because I would rather have people with courage beside me, and I would rather have people with integrity, and they lack both.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022 data-id=\u002203fcc637c9664deab33d2e15d6755a7c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000263\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002203fcc637c9664deab33d2e15d6755a7c\u0022\u003EDENISE ROCHE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E This week is Youth Week. It is quite ironic really that this Budget delivers such a harsh deal for young people. If we look at the reduction in allowances for postgraduate study and if we look at what is happening with student loans, it really is quite a savage deal for our younger people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000264\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003EIt is quite distressing as well to see the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, which attacks our older people, in front of the House. The Green policy is to oppose asset testing for our senior members. We have this policy for several reasons, and my colleague Kevin Hague has already outlined some of them. One reason is that we see asset testing\u2014and this legislation seeks to increase the threshold, basically\u2014as discriminatory. It is discrimination against older people, because there are no other health care services for which you have to front up and be asset tested on in order to access them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000265\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003EWe also oppose it because it is unevenly spread. I think the previous speaker, the Hon Trevor Mallard, referred to the fact that people who are quite well off and who are used to placing things in family trusts will be able to rort the system. They will not be as savagely dealt to as those who are less well off but who still have their own assets. It goes against sensible reasoning. We have already heard from a previous speaker that this actually delivers just $4.5 million in savings, which is not much when you consider the lifelong contribution that our senior members have made to our society.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000266\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003EThe bill also goes against what we see as the current policy for the care of the elderly, which is about ageing in place. We are moving to a situation where older people will be picking up residential care only episodically, if you like, and where they will move into residential care for respite and then come back into the community. It is going to be very difficult to do that if they have already had to sell their family home.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000267\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003EThe capping of the threshold makes it harder for people. I live on Waiheke Island. It is a really beautiful place to live. It has been a haven for older people, and quite a large number of our community are beneficiaries. Most of those beneficiaries are superannuitants. People retired to Waiheke because it used to be cheap. It was a great place to live out your last years in good health in the sun and go swimming every day, and people bought cheaply in order to fund their lifestyles. What has happened in the last 10 to 15 years is that the property boom has meant that our older people are now asset-rich. They are asset-rich because the property prices have increased, because there has been quite a lot of property speculation. The property speculation has meant that the cost and the value of people\u2019s homes have gone up. What that means for our older people is that they are now at stages where they are having to access residential care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000268\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222df33ee5-23d6-441c-a9ba-6495aa69f9fd\u0022\u003EIn the case of Mr Jones, who actually was the president of Grey Power\u2014and a serial submitter who is going to be seriously hacked off about not being able to submit on this\u2014his wife went to a rest home some years ago. He has been asset tested, and this will mean that he will suffer more hardship, because his bach that he bought 30 years ago is now worth half a million dollars. That means he has to pay for the quality of care that his wife receives. He treks over to the North Shore every day of the week to see her. He does that because that is the commitment he made when he married her. I cannot believe this Government is being so cruel to our older people. This is a stingy and unpleasant piece of legislation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022 data-id=\u00226ef3139bb0aa43a5865373df2099e367\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000269\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226ef3139bb0aa43a5865373df2099e367\u0022\u003EMIKE SABIN (National\u2014Northland):\u003C/span\u003E We have heard from previous members about our not having the fortitude to make strong decisions. I think that is exactly what this Budget has been about, rather than the big pile of lolly scrambles and voter bribes that this nation got used to over the 9 years of the Labour Government\u2019s tenure. This Budget is another good example of this Government\u2019s priorities in action. It is responsibly managing the Government\u2019s finances, building a more competitive and productive economy, delivering better public services, and rebuilding Christchurch. What we have seen in the last 24 hours is a good example of what New Zealanders expect of this Government, which is fortitude, which is making the right decisions for the right time and not throwing a bunch of lollies out.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000270\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003EThe Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is about sustainable management of long-term residential care. Members opposite know it and we know it, but, as usual, it is oppose, oppose, oppose. This bill reflects the practice of this Government to responsibly manage the finances, to responsibly manage our taxpayers\u2019 dollars, and to make sure that we can continue to afford the cost of residential care as our population ages. That is about having fortitude and making the right decisions for the right time. Clearly, that is what sets us apart from our opposition. That is why, when you look at the polls, we have been about 20 points apart for the last 3 years. They look like a set of railway tracks\u201430 percent and 50 percent. They are a set of railway tracks. That is because the New Zealand public have woken up to the need to manage the Government\u2019s finances for the day. That is what they are doing at home.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000271\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003EWe have also heard from the Labour benches that \u201CIt\u2019s only $4 million here. It\u2019s only a few million there.\u201D Well, a few million here and there soon adds up to a few billion here and there. Although the previous Government might have been happy to spend up large to buy its way back into power, we make decisions that we know New Zealanders want, need, and deserve. That is about leadership. That is what this country expects. That is why we are on this side of the House. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00225cc8bc2a4f1940f5a9bc5983178b49de\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a first time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000272\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022f63fc5f1e9184980a0534c0bc0a53b12\u0022\u003ESecond Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022 data-id=\u0022ea1ab86bb6e8452abf4c5f1200cc2dc4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000273\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ea1ab86bb6e8452abf4c5f1200cc2dc4\u0022\u003EHon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector)\u003C/span\u003E on behalf of the Minister for Social Development: I move, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill will set in place a fair and responsible framework for assessing a person\u2019s assets to determine whether they are eligible for assistance through the residential care subsidy. Increasing the asset threshold by the change in the Consumers Price Index maintains the real value of the assets a resident is able to own for their own use, including for bequests if that is their wish. It ensures sustainability of the residential care subsidy into the future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000274\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003EThis bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to change the amount of the annual increase in the applicable asset thresholds used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care are required to contribute to the costs of their care. Current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are replaced with Consumers Price Index indexation of the thresholds. The bill sets the thresholds for 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 to $213,297, which is Threshold A, and $116,806, which is Threshold B, respectively. Threshold B is the lower threshold, excluding a person\u2019s home and car. It also requires those amounts to be CPI-adjusted by Order in Council for each later year beginning on 1 July 2013. This bill also ensures that the thresholds will continue to operate and to be CPI-adjusted for each year beginning on 1 July after the close of 30 June 2026.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000275\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003EI draw the attention of members opposite to the Beehive website\u2014not difficult to find\u2014where they will find a press release from the Hon Tony Ryall that sets out this particular measure. I am pleased to be able to bring this bill before the House today. I commend this bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u00226c8d3a035d774d699c7af7b0bb23fa9a\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000276\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226c8d3a035d774d699c7af7b0bb23fa9a\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E I would like to thank the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, who just rose to take a call on the second reading of this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, because she took 2 minutes to speak to this bill, as opposed to the Minister in charge of this bill, the Minister for Social Development, who said that this bill was such a priority for this Government that she gave it all of 1 minute\u2019s attention in this House. It was all of 1 minute\u2019s attention in this House. If this is such a priority for this Government, why have the two Ministers for whom this bill roughly comes under their areas spent the collective wisdom of 3 minutes in this House\u20143 minutes\u2014to go through the merits of bringing in this bill? It has been only 3 minutes. There was not one mention in the Minister of Finance\u2019s speech yesterday\u20143 minutes, and not one mention in the Minister of Finance\u2019s speech. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000277\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002257279d7f6b5c44639a5bf846ee0dd869\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Not in the media pack.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000278\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f0507a4908a44e5cb80a352292039ed6\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: It was not in the media pack. We are told that maybe there is a press release, and I will take the Minister\u2019s word on that. Apparently there is a press release. This bill has been the dirty little secret of this Budget. Where did it come from? It is so important and it is such a priority that we are in this House debating it, and National members did not even want to talk about it\u2014go and find the press release on Tony Ryall\u2019s website. Fine, we will go have a look, but it is burrowed away somewhere, I am sure, in amongst what else he is saying about the health budget in this year\u2019s Budget, which was delivered yesterday.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000279\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe are going to oppose this bill, and we support other parties that are going to oppose this bill too. Yes, we are going to oppose it because the process is poor. I have already mentioned the fact that this bill has snuck up on us. The people who are concerned about this in the community\u2014the elderly and the families of the elderly\u2014will not get to have their chance to have their say on it. As I think Mr McClay, or perhaps it was the member for Hamilton East, mentioned, he thought that the measures taken in this bill would help the Government get back on track in terms of its fiscal plan. Well, $4.5 million worth of savings in the first year is hardly a significant step change for the economy in order for this bill to become a reality. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000280\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EIf this is one of National\u2019s big ideas in this Budget, I would hate to see the little ones. I would hate to see the little ones, because this is going to save us $4.5 million in the first year. It will affect 170 elderly people around our country, and their voice in this process has been taken away from them. I am sure there will be many, many families around the country who are concerned about the welfare of their elderly mothers, fathers, and grandparents, who are\u2014[Interruption] Yes, that is a very good point, Sue Moroney. They have spent their lifetime savings to make sure\u2014they have done the right thing. They have paid off their mortgages, and now they find the fact that this Government wants to take money off them. So, again, I make the point that this Budget has hit the young and the old, and probably everyone else in between. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000281\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is another example, another symptom, of a Government with no plan. It has no plan to deal with the big issues. Instead of dealing with the big issues, it is almost like a really bad horror movie, where someone is doing the dishes and someone is coming up behind them with a dagger. You shout: \u201CNo! You need to address the problem that\u2019s behind you! There\u2019s a big problem behind you. Look out! Look out!\u201D. But, no, that person keeps doing the dishes because the dishes are the right thing to do. No\u2014survival is the right thing to do. Survival is the right thing to do, and this Budget that was delivered this week is a bad B-grade horror movie. Unfortunately, the people of New Zealand woke up and it was their own personal nightmare. That is why we need some real leadership, especially the elderly people of New Zealand. They need some leadership on this area too. This is tinkering\u2014$4.5 million in the first year and $16.4 million in the fourth year. Aged care in New Zealand will become an increasingly important issue for our nation. If we do not start addressing this in a way that is not tinkering\u2014and this bill is certainly an example of that\u2014we will have big problems. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000282\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E That is why we need to have that select committee process, so that people from both sides of the fence can have this debate. It would be an opportunity for that. But they are not going to get that. It would have been a great opportunity for Roy Reid and his team from Grey Power to come forward and say: \u201CWe don\u2019t necessarily agree with this. We think that you guys should take a broader approach as to how we go forward, and maybe work together across this Parliament to deal with how we deal with aged care going forward.\u201D But we will not get that. Instead, we get a piece of legislation that will do very little. It sneaks up on us; it does not even get a mention in the Budget speech. Apparently there is a press release\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000283\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002249e3d28f496744f0bc25165554e14e42\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: We\u2019ve found it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000284\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022eba83cf0f761474284bfa0f06de9d824\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Have we found it?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000285\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226635ec2ea09d4693aa9006feb2abca21\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s a paragraph of something else.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000286\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223affbeab0a904c44bf5d58b2a41bf937\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Right. There is not a press release; it is contained in a press release. This is how proud National members are. They are so proud of it and it is such a priority that there is a paragraph in a press release, probably at the bottom of the press release, so it is camouflaged in this Budget. If this was such a priority, why was it not in the first paragraph of the Minister of Finance\u2019s Budget speech? What we get is more contempt for the New Zealand people, more contempt for our elderly, and, in a previous bill that this House considered, contempt for our paper boys and paper girls around the country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000287\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWhat we have got here is another example of bad process in this Government. It is taking away the voices of our elderly and their families, who should get to have their say on this. As I mentioned in my first reading speech, we should hear from the other side too, because I did see a press release out from Martin Taylor from the Aged Care Association. We should let him have his say as well. But, no, this is going through under urgency, under dodgy process. No one gets to have a say on it, but this is the way the Government wants to do the business on this. This is the way the Government wants to do business on this, on a very, very important issue that is facing our nation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000288\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is another example of a lack of leadership for this country. We were looking for leadership in terms of growth, in terms of how we create jobs, and in terms of how we look after our elderly. What do we get? What do we get? We get tinkering around the edges. It is the low-hanging fruit strategy from the Government: let us steal a little bit from the paper boys and the paper girls, let us take a little bit off our elderly. We will not tell them about it; we will just thrust it upon them in a very dodgy process in this House. Let them have their say. Let them have their say on this one, because the 170 elderly people in New Zealand whom this is going to affect surely should be able to have their say. And the 610 in 2015-16 should be able to have their say as well.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000289\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224978d69be1ee4a0a93ee250e79ab81dc\u0022\u003EDenis O\u2019Rourke\u003C/span\u003E: And their families.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000290\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00227b37cfe608ce46928255386dac4d57ea\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: And their families. They are taking money away from some of our most vulnerable citizens in this country. They are people who have paid taxes all through their life, they have done the right thing, they bought a house, and they have built up their assets, and this is how the Government treats them. This is how it treats them. Do the right thing and make sure that you give these people their say, and give the other side a say too.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000291\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00224a11ce4e-9fb3-4738-b0be-5a9f81d975da\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022872ce4d3678f455ea3551942cc1faa68\u0022\u003EHon Maurice Williamson\u003C/span\u003E: Do the right thing and sit down.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000292\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222efc7d5f55f745e89cdee48a8037f950\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: You should stay sitting down, too. I am sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, the member should stay sitting down. But, again, this bill is another example of lack of leadership. They have a crack at the oldies, they have a crack at the youngies, and they are probably going to have a crack at everyone else in between. But we have not found that press release yet.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022 data-id=\u00223ff33332b2d64e38945966f53fb717c3\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000293\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223ff33332b2d64e38945966f53fb717c3\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour\u2014Palmerston North):\u003C/span\u003E I seek leave to table a document titled \u201CHealth receives largest increase in spending\u201D embedded within which is a single-line reference\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000294\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222f4296882d494da999d15e0176c113cd\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! We first want to know the source of the document.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000295\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225237de8ec6084434a61de934ed45cddc\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: The source is the Hon Tony Ryall.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000296\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221b8630c81f0e4e8090844f7dcb0fee88\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Is this in the public domain?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000297\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002299bd0abcb8d04fddbacffb408d83c871\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: Well, it is hard to tell. It is hard to tell.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000298\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002264b4b8c426b448f4a46e110821c863a0\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Is this on a website?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000299\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002253bc56892c5f454a9f15ac26695745ca\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: It is on a website.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000300\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022492da785ed7f4b29be74663900118f8a\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Well, we are not going to entertain that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022 data-id=\u0022b79fe4a4202e448eaeca86046bebaa0c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000301\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b79fe4a4202e448eaeca86046bebaa0c\u0022\u003EDr PAUL HUTCHISON (National\u2014Hunua):\u003C/span\u003E It gives me great pleasure to speak on this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, because this is a responsible bill, this is a realistic bill, this is a fair bill, and this bill certainly ensures the sustainability of long-term residential care in New Zealand with the changing demographic that we have.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000302\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002267d80b998f6946ea97145521db3f0966\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Rubbish! It makes no difference to long-term residential care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000303\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002246f3f1fb89c847d3aa040de271c905c5\u0022\u003EDr PAUL HUTCHISON\u003C/span\u003E: And there we have Trevor Mallard saying \u201CRubbish!\u201D\u2014and how absolutely typical this is of Labour over there, who undoubtedly are in \u201CCloud Labour Land\u201D once again.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000304\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223bbc10d336fa411692e951f7d262d79f\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: Get the lines right! It\u2019s \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000305\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224d85c245b07a4807b760bd7ddc5bbc61\u0022\u003EDr PAUL HUTCHISON\u003C/span\u003E: Well, \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D, as well. Those members have totally forgotten about the global recession, they have totally forgotten about the Christchurch earthquakes, and they have totally forgotten about the unpredictability of the situation right around Europe and elsewhere. They are determined to spend more, to tax more, and to borrow more if they possibly can. That is what they would do. Only last week I was overseas with their former leader the Hon Phil Goff, and it just does bring back to me the absolute reality of how lucky we are here in New Zealand with responsible government, with stable government, and with enlightened government, and that is what this is all about. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000306\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003EWe have heard from this tawdry Labour Opposition that this bill has been kept secret. But this measure has not been kept secret from the sector. Government Ministers briefed the sector just prior to the Budget, and neither the Aged Care Association nor Grey Power have put out press releases against this measure. I think it is very important that, indeed, the Opposition does realise this. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000307\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003EIt is important to realise that from 1 July the change will take place whereby the Government will begin adjusting the asset threshold for rest home care subsidies at the rate of inflation. It is because it comes in on 1 July that it is important that we have urgency at this stage of events. We will be using the Consumers Price Index, because that is a realistic and rational way to ensure that there is an appropriate adjustment. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000308\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003EI looked back at the Hon Ruth Dyson\u2019s speech when she introduced the bill in 2004, and, of course, somehow she plucked out of the air a $10,000 increase that was going to continue on to 2025. The reality of that is that in 7 years for a single person this has increased from $45,000 to $115,000\u2014more than doubled. It has by far more than doubled and that is just unsustainable. In these times it is quite unworkable and unrealistic. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000309\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003ESo we have over there a party that is prepared, in these difficult economic times, to pluck something out of the air, and have no rationale whatsoever as to the number. Those were the days when we had surpluses, when the Government could have been using a much more prudential long-term view so as to get New Zealand well prepared for the future. But, no, it did not. It was prepared just to pluck this number out of the ether, and away it went, and, consequently, we have seen this amount more than double in 7 short years, which is totally unrealistic. So we are simply slowing the rate of increase in recognition of tight times and an ageing population. We are making sure we can afford to afford subsidising the cost of residential care for an increasing number of older New Zealanders who need it. When Opposition members talk about $4.5 million in the first year, over 4 years this actually amounts to $34.5 million. That is a substantial amount of money. Every million dollars counts. It might not to that wasteful Labour Opposition, but for us it is absolutely important. This is a responsible bill, this is a realistic bill, this is a fair bill, and this, indeed, will sustain long-term residential care into the future.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022 data-id=\u0022809f5dde0ac04ce9a6b20aef19557b14\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000310\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022809f5dde0ac04ce9a6b20aef19557b14\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON (Labour\u2014Port Hills):\u003C/span\u003E You can always tell when a member does not believe a word he is saying, particularly a member like Dr Paul Hutchison, who is regarded by every member in this House as having integrity and being honest. He had to force every single word out of his throat and out of his mouth. It was so clear that he does not believe a word of it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000311\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EEarlier in this debate we heard first of all from the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Paula Bennett, who introduced this piece of legislation, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Bill, in the most lacklustre, unpassionate, resentful way imaginable in the House. Then we heard from Jo Goodhew, the Minister for Senior Citizens\u2014except when she is supporting legislation like this. Then we heard from a new member, Alfred Ngaro, that in fact National did release a press statement announcing this legislation. So what I would like to offer, again, is for one of those members, or any National member\u2014frankly, I do not give a toss which one it is\u2014to table the press release. It is not on the National Party website.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000312\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d3baef17013e44bb85d3e06b8868c56e\u0022\u003EHon Jo Goodhew\u003C/span\u003E: It is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000313\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022da69745efc4b4e12b49ccdd0298d183d\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: It is nowhere to be found.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000314\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00226537ea0b678b42aa83e3c911fffd65e1\u0022\u003EHon Jo Goodhew\u003C/span\u003E: It is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000315\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d46fd844317c43588be1e7ef1e968ab3\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: The Minister is bleating away \u201CIt is. It is\u201D Well, I am sorry, Minister. It is not. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000316\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f311ec47f06e4f2a9c40b927f3dd1cb0\u0022\u003EHon Jo Goodhew\u003C/span\u003E: Then you\u2019re blind.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000317\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221f3e46dc803a4019937d0fdd7fb00861\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: No, I am not blind. I am able to go through the National Party website. Other people have, including members of other political parties. So I just invite the member to table it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000318\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002260200136-9d63-4a82-b4f5-c00411adb1fd\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222090214715df48f2bc05ba9091e03e47\u0022\u003EHon Jo Goodhew\u003C/span\u003E: Your colleague tried to table it before.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000319\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f6b850ba98bb4765bdeae4acc33ab957\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: I would just like to invite the member to table the press release announcing this legislation, which is being put through under urgency through all stages. I want to further invite the next National speaker to explain to the 170 affected residents of residential care in New Zealand why the contract that they entered into when they entered the residential facility\u2014which explained how much they would be entitled to keep as their assets before they were fully subsidised, or partly subsidised, in that residential care facility\u2014is being broken. Why is the contract with those 170 hard-working, decent, honest, good New Zealanders being broken, because this bill is going through under urgency, without giving any of those residents the opportunity to appear before a select committee and say to this House \u201CWe entered a residential facility on the clear understanding that the legislation was in place and that is how we would be affected.\u201D, but now under urgency the rules are being changed from 1 July? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000320\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EI think that every single one of those 170 residents deserves the respect of having the opportunity to appear before a select committee. In fact, it would not do any harm if members of the select committee actually went to a residential care facility and listened directly to those residents. But we have not had that respect shown to any older person in New Zealand. What we have had is older New Zealanders being described as a problem, being described as a burden, and being described as a critical part of the financial crisis. If saving $4.5 million by taking money out of the pockets of current rest home residents is going to save New Zealand, then National has quite a lot of fronting up to do about the actual financial position we are in. Taking $4.5 million from 170 residents in residential care is what this bill is going to save in the next financial year. That is out of $94 billion that the Government is going to spend. How can saving that amount of money ensure the long-term sustainability of the asset-testing regime? It is just nonsense. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000321\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThe fact that the Government is ramming this legislation through under all stages, under urgency, without giving one single member of the public the opportunity to have a say, shows just how ashamed they are of this legislation. I bet that not one single backbench member went into their caucus briefing on the Budget on Tuesday knowing that this legislation was going to be introduced. I challenge any single National backbencher to tell this House that they knew, in advance of their caucus briefing on Tuesday morning, that this was what they were going to be signing up to. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000322\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221798c43a26ef41dd89812de9403de53f\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: Not one.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000323\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a4c86b22cdb5473a9b4ed7705b6cc082\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: Not one single member of their caucus knew in advance of the caucus briefing on Tuesday that they were going to have to put their name on the public record to this legislation being rammed through under urgency for no good reason. Not one single member of their backbench knew it. What about after the caucus briefing? I want any single National backbencher to tell this House that they knew, after the caucus briefing on Tuesday, that this legislation was being introduced under urgency and being taken through all stages. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000324\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002279db8b64-1f9b-4416-9b81-a12963db9cbf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222272ddbe9fe64152bd429a13c3d0885a\u0022\u003EHon Trevor Mallard\u003C/span\u003E: No, not one. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000325\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225c5d2a7f0ca943afb33940b088267951\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: Not one single National member was told about this legislation in advance of its coming in. I guess what you could conclude from that is that older New Zealanders should not feel too bad, after all. Yes, they have had the rules around asset testing changed, yes, the bill is going through under urgency, and they will be totally denied any opportunity to have their say about whether or not this is a good move, whether it is justifiable, whether it is fair, but they should not feel too bad about that, because not one single National backbencher knew about it, either. They clearly did not have a say. No wonder Alfred Ngaro was so embarrassed about speaking on behalf of it! The member used to be highly regarded in Auckland in the social services sector, but that regard is rapidly disappearing and, I think, quite tragically. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000326\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EI think it is an embarrassment to the process of Parliament that when we have the opportunity to say this is an issue that requires the urgent attention of the House and therefore we will extend our sitting hours, and we will all stay in Wellington away from other work that we would normally do on a Friday, the process is being used to cheat our older New Zealanders out of the money that just yesterday they could have looked up in the legislative framework\u2014in the statute book\u2014and seen what they would be entitled to. They have now had the rules totally changed. A number of those people are already in a contractual arrangement with a residential provider. They cannot change that arrangement. In just over 1 month the rules will be changed. I think that is an embarrassment. I think the process is a breach of the goodwill of Parliament. I think the Minister for Senior Citizens, the Minister for Social Development, and the Minister of Health should be ashamed of themselves.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022 data-id=\u00224e49593d0b0c4f839e069e79905edd8c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000327\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00224e49593d0b0c4f839e069e79905edd8c\u0022\u003EKEVIN HAGUE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E I want to first of all make some remarks in response to the contribution from Dr Paul Hutchison. Dr Hutchison\u2019s contribution to the debate indicates, I think, that perhaps like everyone else in New Zealand he has been left a little flat-footed\u2014and the remarks from my Labour colleagues may indicate why\u2014about what this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill does.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000328\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EHe appears to suggest in his contribution that the change is merely a cosmetic one. He draws our attention to the reasonableness of CPI increases\u2014in fact, missing the point that actually what this bill represents is a fundamental change to the State\u2019s policy in relation to asset-testing thresholds. Actually, we are moving in this bill\u2014which will not be subject to any submissions at all from the public\u2014to a regime in which the current threshold is frozen in real terms. That is what we are doing. We are freezing the current threshold, and that is a change from a policy that has been in place since 2004 of actually progressively rolling back the threshold. That is not just a cosmetic change; that is a fundamental change.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000329\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EAs Ruth Dyson indicated, it is a change that older New Zealanders, I believe, are entitled to have been consulted about, because, actually, if there is one thing that older New Zealanders ask from the State, it is some certainty on which to plan their affairs. Effectively, they had been made a promise about the asset-testing regime that would be in place at the point that they might need residential care, and that promise is now being gone back on. That is what the Government is doing with this bill. Sadly, Dr Hutchison does not seem to understand that that is what is being done. Most New Zealanders will have woken up this morning not understanding what is being done. I just hope that through the process of this debate we can actually raise with them what is occurring and the fact that, tragically, they will not have a say on it. They will not have a say on it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000330\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EDr Hutchison suggests there is support for the changes being made. The weak basis for that claim is that he has not personally seen a press release from Age Concern or Grey Power about it. Well, I have not seen their press releases, either, but I did hear Roy Reid, the National President of Grey Power, on Morning Report this morning around a quarter past 6 saying that he thought it was a very bad idea, and talking about asset testing as a discriminatory act against older people. That is the Green Party\u2019s view also. That is the Green Party\u2019s view\u2014that asset testing for aged residential care is discriminatory on the grounds of age against a group of New Zealanders who actually, if anyone is entitled to it, are entitled to security in their old age. \u201CWhat is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers\u2019 keepers in reality? Why should people not have security in their old age, or when they are invalided?\u201D. That was Michael Joseph Savage, from the parliamentary debate on the introduction of the Social Security Act in the first place. Indeed, that cuts to the very heart of this issue.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000331\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EFinally, Paul Hutchison refers to this bill as being a responsible bill. Well, I would say it is not responsible. I would say it is responsive, but responsive not to the needs of New Zealanders but, rather, to the need of the Government to be able spin the health budget. Because the spin is all about $1.5 billion extra for health\u2014health being the big winner from this Government\u2019s Budget. Well, it is a struggle to figure out exactly how the Government has reached that $1.5 billion number, but it seems to be the total cost over 4 years of what have been announced as new initiatives. Well, that is a cost, it is over 4 years, and it is not about the revenue. So, yes, it is true; it is true that the Government is intending in the Budget that the Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, has trumpeted with the press release that is on the Beehive website\u2014and I see that members from the National Party have been displaying it on their iPads\u2014to spend that. It is true that that is the total cost of those new initiatives. But the fact is that in a Budget that at its top line is supplying just $288 million more in Vote Health\u2014and that is barely 2 percent of the Vote Health budget\u2014as an increase, that increase is probably not enough to cover even the cost of inflation in health, let alone the growing population and let alone the growing population of older people with increased needs. So, actually, the increase from last year to this year in Vote Health will not even enable the sector to stand still. Just to be able to try to stand still, the sector will need to be cutting health services. That is the only way that the sector will be able to do that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000332\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EOn top of that, we have got a whole series of new initiatives from the Government. Well, all of those new initiatives\u2014$434 million in the first year\u2014will have to be funded by cuts elsewhere in the health sector. That is not how it is being spun by the Government, but that is the reality when the Budget is not even being increased by enough to cover inflation, let alone demographic factors and let alone these new initiatives. So the only way that the Government is able to put more money into elective surgery, for example, or more money into rheumatic fever, or more money into cancer services is to take that money from somewhere else in the health sector. Sadly, in this bill we are seeing the machinery behind one of those sources, because one of the places that the Government is taking money from to be able to fund those new initiatives and the demographic change in demand is older people. It is from older people. Actually, that is the point.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000333\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003ESo what Mr Hutchison says\u2014that this is a responsible Budget\u2014is completely wrong. It is responsive to the Government\u2019s need to find revenue sources to fund its extravagant promises in health and its extravagant spin around health. That is reprehensible because the cost of doing that\u2014and members have referred to the year 1 contribution that this measure will make of just somewhat over $4 million\u2014the amount of money that the Government will peg back by going back on its promise to older New Zealanders, over time will increase. In the fourth year it is something like $16 million. Sure, it is not a lot in the face of the health budget, but what it suggests is a Government that is so desperate to be able to support its spin about health spending and about the $1.5 billion in new initiatives that it is prepared to claw back even that promise that it made to older people.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000334\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThere are big issues\u2014there are big issues\u2014in aged residential care. The Green Party and the Labour Party in the last term of Parliament produced a report about what some of those issues are. They are things like ensuring quality of care. They are things like ensuring equitable wages for the work that is done in that sector. And they are things like ensuring the dignity of older people and reflecting the dignity of older people in the type of care that they receive and the type of regime to which they are subjected. In this bill the Government further undermines the dignity of older people by creating, once again, a discriminatory regime and entrenching that regime. That is not what older New Zealanders deserve. Older New Zealanders deserve that security in the evening of their days, as Michael Joseph Savage first promised in the 1930s, and that is what this Government ought to be living up to and is not.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002218f9e3ea-81c5-4414-af48-d6bb843a9227\u0022 data-id=\u0022dcf06e03ee5e46679bc33737a9d82cdf\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000335\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002218f9e3ea-81c5-4414-af48-d6bb843a9227\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022dcf06e03ee5e46679bc33737a9d82cdf\u0022\u003EMELISSA LEE (National):\u003C/span\u003E It is a great pleasure to rise to make a short contribution on the second reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. But before I go forward with this speech I would like to just respond to something Ruth Dyson said. I would like to say that unlike the Labour caucus, this caucus on this side of the House does not leak like a sieve. We do not actually comment about things. We have discussions, but we do not actually leak like Labour.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000336\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002218f9e3ea-81c5-4414-af48-d6bb843a9227\u0022\u003EDemand for long-term residential care for older people is increasing, and this important bill will make sure that the aged residential care subsidy is sustainable into the future. That is the important bit\u2014that it is sustainable into the future. We need to make sure we can pay for it in the future. The number of New Zealanders aged 65 and over will exceed 1 million by the late 2020s, compared with half a million people back in 2009. In fact, the number of people over 75 years of age is forecast to double by 2033. From 1 July the Government will begin adjusting the asset threshold for rest home care subsidies at the rate of inflation. To me, that is actually a good thing, because unlike the rhetoric that the Green Party and the Labour Party\u2014the members opposite\u2014have been saying, what this change really means is that 30 percent of people receiving rest home care who pay the full price of their care will do so for a little longer\u2014on average, it will be for about 8 to 10 weeks\u2014before the lower rest home subsidy actually kicks in. The asset threshold for the aged residential care subsidy will increase from $210,000 to $213,000 for single people and for married couples where both are in residential care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000337\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002218f9e3ea-81c5-4414-af48-d6bb843a9227\u0022\u003EThis is a responsible bill. This is a pragmatic bill. I commend it to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u0022d99e445be30d45d0852bfdc894144046\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000338\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022d99e445be30d45d0852bfdc894144046\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Before I call the next member, I have been informed that this is to be a split call between members of New Zealand First. The members participating can determine how much of the 10 minutes they want each. I will ring a warning bell at 2 minutes from the end of the 10-minute call. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022 data-id=\u00229d1ba0efc9cc4c7facd2019e38c2ed26\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229d1ba0efc9cc4c7facd2019e38c2ed26\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E New Zealand First is not supporting this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Yes, we are not supporting this bill. What next? Paula Bennett decides to take away the SuperGold card to provide funding to pay the accounts manager for KiwiSaver? That is what is going to be next.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000340\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EHow demoralising, how disgusting that we show our gratitude to our elderly by forcing their hand to sell off their hard-earned assets in order to feed the welfare reform, which should be called welfare destruction. These welfare reforms are doomed to disaster. How senseless is the current Government, which has decided that the elderly of New Zealand must take out loans in order to pay for care. Because that is what this is all about. We might as well slam the elderly into urban ghettoes. That is definitely going to happen. This new housing scheme, which is incorporated into the welfare reforms, is sure to see South Auckland turn into a dumping-ground\u2014it might as well be. The zero Budget means zero chance for both younger paper boys and girls and senior citizens. It has been made very clear that basing the threshold on a volatile CPI means that the threshold will always be vulnerable to change. The elderly lying on their deathbeds will be forced to wait on their assets either to depreciate or be sold off, just so that they are cared for. Somebody needs to tell that to the National Government. Funnily enough, we will now be asking our elderly to sell off their life insurance and savings and take out loans, just so that they can be provided with care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000341\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EAs for Tim Macindoe, Alfred Ngaro, and Mike Sabin, it would be interesting to see whether those members would give up their houses or their pay to pay for elderly residential care. There are a lot of elderly in Manukau. There are a lot of them from where Alfred Ngaro comes from. How hypocritical is this Government giving this Budget the theme of\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000342\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002235ee0dc7de0344a683c4bb4372fa0f22\u0022\u003ETim Macindoe\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a longstanding convention in this House that you do not use that particular word to describe other members. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000343\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d87138c99e1b4b638bb49b9b7f85e2e2\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: I was communicating with the senior Opposition whip, so I missed it, but I will take the member\u2019s word. I am not sure what it was, but do not do it again. [Interruption] Yes, that word is inappropriate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000344\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228f9640f88b614fa184eada747137a472\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR\u003C/span\u003E: Assets include prepaid funeral schemes. Well, say goodbye to them. The elderly will not be able to die with dignity. No, it is more important to let them struggle to live. That is what this is all about.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000345\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EIt is obvious that the National Government has been sitting on this announcement for quite some time. It knew about it well in advance. The welfare reforms, which should be renamed \u201Cwelfare destruction\u201D, will not work. Funding has to come from somewhere, right? It has to come from somewhere. These welfare reforms have been rushed through simply to sugar-coat a non-existent job market. These welfare reforms, this welfare destruction, will have skilled Kiwis packing and off to Australia.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000346\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First definitely does not support this bill, because it discriminates against our elderly. Alfred Ngaro and Peseta Lotu-Iiga, I challenge you to come out to Manukau, to come out to South Auckland and tell the people of the Cook Island and Samoan communities, tell the Tongan community, the Tokelauan and the Tuvaluan, what the National Government\u2019s plan is doing, which is to take away what they rightly should be entitled to. Thank you.  \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002243684a4d-fb40-469a-8e63-cdd1e354b387\u0022 data-id=\u002298ffcbf6cdf24874ba8cda42a282526f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000347\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002243684a4d-fb40-469a-8e63-cdd1e354b387\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002298ffcbf6cdf24874ba8cda42a282526f\u0022\u003EBRENDAN HORAN (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Further to my colleague Asenati Lole-Taylor\u2019s learned comments, I would like to add that our question is: where is democracy? Where is the true democratic process, where we go to a select committee and New Zealanders get their opportunity to view democracy in progress? But we have come to learn that with this Government, democracy is in short supply. When we look at this Budget\u2014what I call a \u201Cbovine-manure sandwich Budget\u201D\u2014which this Government has thrust down the throats of good New Zealand families, we see that it has taken a million here and a million there from other areas, and has just thrown it in as a lubricant. But here is the kicker: it spent $120 million on marketing to isolate New Zealand families and make them think that somehow they are the only ones who do not like the taste. I would say to members like Mike Sabin and Mark Mitchell: take this \u201Cbovine-manure sandwich Budget\u201D up north to your constituents and ask them whether they like the taste. Mark Mitchell, take this \u201Cbovine-manure sandwich Budget\u201D to the elderly in your electorate and ask them whether they like the taste. I wonder whether the elderly, when they were overseas fighting for New Zealand, ever thought they would be coming back to this: selling New Zealand off and attacking the vulnerable and the young and the elderly.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00221c818ce2-6ca3-4c4a-9e6a-2e3a67d070e1\u0022 data-id=\u00220d510543e84f40bb843dc9bc9864c964\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000348\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221c818ce2-6ca3-4c4a-9e6a-2e3a67d070e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00220d510543e84f40bb843dc9bc9864c964\u0022\u003ESHANE ARDERN (National\u2014Taranaki - King Country):\u003C/span\u003E Having to respond to the contribution of that member, Brendan Horan, about bovine infection, or whatever it was, is a wonderful place to start for the member for Taranaki - King Country. I would suggest that he needs a dose of either milk fever medicine or some bloat oil. I am going to try something novel in this debate: I am going to refer to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill that is before us, and speak in support of it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000349\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221c818ce2-6ca3-4c4a-9e6a-2e3a67d070e1\u0022\u003EIf you pick up the bill and just read the general policy statement, it states: \u201CThis Bill amends the Social Securities Act 1964 to change the amount of the annual increase in the applicable asset thresholds used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care have to contribute to the cost of their care. Current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are replaced with Consumers Price Index (CPI) indexation of the thresholds.\u201D From listening to our opponents, the presumption is that there must be going to be an increase. When you have a listen to the general comments from our opponents, they are about the National Government reducing the tax on the rich, and they are about the National Government not taking into account those who are vulnerable in society. What I would suggest is that the levers that the National Government is going to use have a far greater opportunity to reduce the Consumers Price Index increases every year than any other particular measure you have seen from a Government in recent times has done. By doing that, there is a high probability that the increase for those in long-term aged residential care could be less than $10,000 per year. Injecting a bit of fact into the debate occasionally is, I know, new and novel, particularly if you are on the other side of the House, but I thought that might be worthy of mention right now.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000350\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221c818ce2-6ca3-4c4a-9e6a-2e3a67d070e1\u0022\u003EThis is a sensible measure proceeding from the Budget, and I look forward to it progressing through the House. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022 data-id=\u0022fc34345bd989471283a90c5e27b1b678\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000351\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022fc34345bd989471283a90c5e27b1b678\u0022\u003EJACINDA ARDERN (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E It is my pleasure to speak on the second reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I was listening to the contribution made by the National member Shane Ardern, and of course he was speculating over some of the impact that this bill\u2014these changes in asset thresholds\u2014might have. I guess the key word there is \u201Cspeculating\u201D, because we really do not know, because this bill is not going to go through the rigorous process that we would usually in this Parliament expect a piece of legislation to go through. We do tend to use urgency, I think, often unwisely in this House, and I think this is a prime case of that. I understand that when we are talking about excise and when we are talking about things that might cause a run on the liquor stories, you may have reason for extraordinary urgency, but this is not one of those cases. So I really challenge the Minister for Social Development to share with us during the Committee stage why this was determined to be of such urgency that we denied the people of New Zealand the ability to have their say. I look forward to the Minister\u2019s contribution on that, because I know that on this side of the House we would have appreciated the opportunity to speak with members of the public about the impact that this change would have on them, and also with the likes of groups such as Grey Power and Age Concern, which represent the interests of the people, the elderly, who will be affected by these changes. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000352\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003E I am also interested, from the Government\u2019s side, in its motivation for this change, because I do not think that has come across with enough clarity. Is it an issue of sustainability? Or is it an issue of revenue? I see these as being two distinct things. Most of the changes we have debated in this House to date, since the Budget was read yesterday, have been under the proviso of revenue-gathering exercises or savings. If that is indeed the case, and if this is the best we can do, that is somewhat worrying, and we would suggest that there is still time for the Government to consider a capital gains tax. Secondly, if it is an issue of sustainability, then I think that that is an incredibly interesting point, because the impact that this will have will be very direct for the individuals it affects, but in terms of the wider fiscal spend, nominal\u2014compared, for instance, with the impact of superannuation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000353\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EI should not need to tell the Government this, because it is set out in plain language in Vote Social Development. In fact, it states, from the Ministry of Social Development, that New Zealand superannuation accounted for 55 percent of total expenditure on benefits in 2007-08, and fell to nearly 52 percent. This ratio is at 55 percent in the current year, and is estimated to rise to 60 percent by 2015-16. Sixty percent\u2014that might seem meaningless, but when you factor in that within 3 years the amount we spend on superannuation alone will be equivalent to almost the entire education budget, then we are starting to talk about a significant spend. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000354\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003ESo if we want to talk about sustainability in this House, we need to start getting real about the impact that our superannuation spend is having not just on social development but on the New Zealand economy generally. In fact, by 2050, according to the long-term fiscal Treasury output\u2014which, of course, it is required to provide, I believe, every 5 years\u2014over $200 billion will be the amount of the shortfall. That is more than New Zealand\u2019s entire GDP. Even Treasury is supporting a lift in the age of superannuation. It is completely disingenuous that that side of the House should try to maintain the line that we do not need to look at this issue. We absolutely do, and this is classic avoidance. This bill represents classic avoidance. In fact, Bill English himself admits that something needs to happen in this area, which puts him at odds with the Prime Minister when it comes to the age of eligibility for superannuation. In fact, it is widely known that the Prime Minister comments privately that the position is probably unsustainable, but because he has made a political commitment he is unwilling to address that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000355\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EThat is not leadership, in my mind. That is not leadership. These are the hard issues and the issues that this Budget has chosen to avoid, and the result of that is this bill. This bill is a direct result of avoidance from that Government around the most significant issues. I even, just this morning, heard a Government Minister, in fact, state that the Retirement Commissioner said that this is really going to bite in 2020, so we do not need to worry about it now. We do not need to worry about it now. Again, I see that as a failure of leadership. The reason we need to debate this now is that for all of those who are under the age of 45\u2014that may not include many people in this House\u2014they deserve to know that there will be changes coming. They deserve to know that the system will be sustainable, and they deserve, for instance, to have the knowledge in order to be investing in their own retirement funds, because that is what we are going to need in the future: a real mixture of personal savings as well as superannuation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000356\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EBut the sad fact is that most of the people my age when surveyed by the Retirement Commissioner did not believe that universal superannuation would be available to them when they retired. And no wonder, when you see classic avoidance in this House to deal with the sustainability of superannuation. We need to address it. I also think the reason we need to address it is that we need to start looking at ways to cushion any change on our most vulnerable. I do believe it is necessary that if we see a lift in the retirement age, those who are working particularly in low-wage, low-skilled, but hard working environments, which mean that it would be physically impossible for them to continue beyond a certain age, we need to make sure we cushion that, that we have the necessary policy in place that allows them to retire at a time that is fair and equitable. We need time to develop those policies and those ideas, and that is what we should be debating in this House, not this threshold change that we are debating today. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000357\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EBut, also, I think one of the reasons the Government is unwilling to bring this up, to date, is that it would highlight the contradictions in what it is doing currently. In fact, if this really is about sustainability for people when they retire, delaying auto-enrolment, delaying the urgency around people\u2019s personal savings, which we know is crucial, given the outlook for the Treasury books, seems utterly bizarre to me. Our personal savings are shallow\u2014they are shallow\u2014and that has a flow-on effect for our wider economy. But instead of encouraging further personal savings, this is another thing that this Government, for political expediency, has decided to just waylay, and we cannot do that for ever. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000358\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EWhere is all of this coming from, then\u2014this idea that all of this should be loaded on to future generations? It is not just in superannuation policies, it is not just around superannuation; the intergenerational inequity that this Government feels perfectly content to load on to the next generation of voters extends beyond superannuation. Where else does it go to? Well, we can name a few on this side. Asset sales. Selling off future revenue-gathering\u2014[Interruption] I am still going, I am sorry, Mr Calder. I have not finished. We are selling off our assets\u2014a future source of revenue for the next generation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000359\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EWhat about student allowances? I will listen intently to you when you do get to your feet, but, if you would not mind, I want to use these 2 minutes. Secondly, student allowances\u2014we have now removed, in Mr Joyce\u2019s wisdom, the ability for anyone at postgraduate level to gain a student allowance in order to allow them to contribute to our economy. This bill delays the bigger issues, and instead of dealing with them we are offloading them on to the future generations. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000360\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022aa2209f1-1889-4c24-b51d-cb2aedc7aa93\u0022\u003EIt is easy for that Government to talk in general terms about policy like this, but what about some real examples? I know a graduate at the moment who is studying towards helping those with learning disabilities\u2014deaf children to learn in the classroom. She will not be able to complete her studies, as a consequence of Mr Joyce\u2019s grand plan to remove student allowances. And I have not even started on the freeze on early childhood education funding, and, of course, the classic paper boy tax credit, which becomes emblematic of this Budget\u2014and how emblematic of this Budget is that Government\u2019s refusal to address the big issues. That is why this is a nickel-and-dime Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022 data-id=\u00228edae5a6a51d494a966b166a924cad2d\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000361\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228edae5a6a51d494a966b166a924cad2d\u0022\u003EDr CAM CALDER (National):\u003C/span\u003E It is timely, in view of the rhetoric we have heard from the other side of the House, to remind the House that this legislation, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, maintains the real value of assets a resident is able to retain, as the indexing of the threshold index allows. It is a sustainable protection of some of the vulnerable in our society. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000362\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022\u003EDealing with the debt that this country faces is the key to our recovery. We understand that on this side of the House. We understand that. The people of New Zealand understand that. Is it understood on \u201CPlanet Parliament\u201D? Is it understood in \u201CGulag Green\u201D? Is it understood in the land of Nod? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000363\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022610f2b3800ad44e9b93648b8329b724c\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Absolutely no.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000364\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f6b6313ae5884d7dabfa19b132522327\u0022\u003EDr CAM CALDER\u003C/span\u003E: Absolutely not. No glimmer of understanding from New Zealand First, either. However, we on this side of the House do know that this Government has to get back into surplus by 2014-15, and this is what we are about to do. This is a principled, pragmatic Government. I commend this bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u002287eabc985a534f5c9c92507565b85508\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000365\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002287eabc985a534f5c9c92507565b85508\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: I call Dr David Clark. This is a split call? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000366\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222135375f9f05490b801792b04d1620e7\u0022\u003EDr David Clark\u003C/span\u003E: It is a 5-minute call.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000367\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a6e7d86414bb410ba99436a005a80055\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: Are the Greens seeking a call? Yes. A split call\u20145 minutes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u0022c1f56e148f204e749e449fa66fa3b7d0\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000368\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c1f56e148f204e749e449fa66fa3b7d0\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E I was not going to rise to speak in this debate on the Social Services (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, but I feel compelled to, given some of the aspersions Mr Woodhouse was casting earlier, in the first reading. Mr Woodhouse was casting aspersions on me for wanting the elderly people of Dunedin to have their say. He did not want the elderly people of Dunedin to have their say. In fact, he was apoplectic with rage at the thought that his own constituents\u2014well, they are not actually his constituents, to be fair; let me say the elderly of New Zealand\u2014should have a say on this legislation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000369\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EOld folks do deserve a say on this legislation. It concerns the assets that are in their care. They are the assets that enable them to have a sense of independence and a sense of being their own person, even as they go into aged care, and to have the opportunity to pass something on to their wider family from the hard work that they have done throughout their working lives. Those same old people also have a concern for intergenerational equity. The older folk whom I talk to\u2014certainly, at the moment\u2014are concerned about their children and particularly their grandchildren, as they see that their generation has many of its assets still intact but those younger folk are missing out on educational opportunities that the older folk feel should be afforded to them, because of many of the miserly changes that this Government is making around tertiary education policy right now.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000370\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003ESo I want to challenge Mr Woodhouse to go out and perhaps have a chat to the people at the Montecillo rest home and tell them he does not want them to have a say in terms of how these decisions are made. I want him to go out and talk to the people at Ross Home.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000371\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222aa0b524-c38d-45aa-bd5b-99c5927085f4\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224c4828a045c0442da95556fc8452a8b8\u0022\u003EClare Curran\u003C/span\u003E: I\u2019ll go with him.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000372\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022683bae8d252d4d0183b8d68a6600d432\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: I have my colleague Clare Curran saying she will take him there if he does not know where to go. These rest homes in Dunedin have people in them who care about their own situation and care about the situation of their grandchildren\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000373\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00222aa0b524-c38d-45aa-bd5b-99c5927085f4\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a5c10901406a410b8cd7d9610f1a9896\u0022\u003EClare Curran\u003C/span\u003E: Oxford Court.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000374\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a32166a7f6a24ebcb1868c835731850b\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014and they feel they should have a say in these pieces of legislation. Mrs Curran is offering to take him to Oxford Court as well. There we go, we have got a programme of visits for Mr Woodhouse if he wants to hear whether old people should have a say in, or have an opinion on, this legislation, which his Government is trying to ram through following the Budget because those members believe that stealing\u2014I should not say stealing; please excuse me\u2014taking money from the elderly and taking money from the paper boys and paper girls of this country is their most urgent priority. They do not want to have a debate about what is going on in the world outside of those easy targets. They do not want to have a debate about real people\u2019s lives. They do not want to have a debate about the pro-growth tax measures that they could be putting through instead of this kind of grab. They do not want to have a talk about pro-export measures. In the previous bill, we saw that they were actually more concerned about putting red tape on business, and we have seen that they are just taking the money where it is easy to get.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000375\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003ESo my challenge is and remains for Mr Woodhouse to go and ask those people whether they are really happy to miss out on having a say in this regard. This bill does affect real people, and this process is simply wrong. We have a select committee process for a reason. It would allow people to weigh up the trade-offs that are being made in this bill and the very real effect that those trade-offs would have on different people\u2019s lives. I challenge Mr Woodhouse to get out there, talk to those people, and see whether they really would rather have a say. My view is that I think they would.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002258f935f1-6646-40ab-9d99-17029396850c\u0022 data-id=\u00226513c998c2a94e5ab6afa94ac06b5682\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000376\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002258f935f1-6646-40ab-9d99-17029396850c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226513c998c2a94e5ab6afa94ac06b5682\u0022\u003EJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green):\u003C/span\u003E T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Mr Speaker. T\u0113n\u0101 koutou e te Whare. I rise to take a short call on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Obviously, the Green Party will not be supporting it, as my colleague Mr Hague made clear earlier. There are a number of reasons for that, which I think he outlined very well: the problems with asset testing and why it is discriminatory.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000377\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002258f935f1-6646-40ab-9d99-17029396850c\u0022\u003EI rise to speak on this bill with a feeling of misgiving because this bill and other Budget legislation are being rushed through under urgency. In my short time in this House I have been really impressed by the quality of submissions and the level of engagement in our legislative process by knowledgable affected citizens. I acknowledge that many of my colleagues have spoken about this already, but I would like to say that an opportunity to come to a select committee and explain how one will be affected by proposed legislative changes is not just a privilege, and it is not just an opportunity to engage in the democratic process; it is actually a really useful tool for us as legislators. It gives us essential information that ensures that there will be a robust policy that will actually serve all New Zealanders, and that we are taking into account all of the costs, all of the benefits, and all of the trade-offs.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000378\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002258f935f1-6646-40ab-9d99-17029396850c\u0022\u003EThe very, very brief regulatory impact statement on this bill, which was clearly delivered just a few days ago\u2014not a lot of research went into it, as far as I can tell\u2014is just another example of bureaucrats in Government departments being told to make choices about how we can find fiscal savings. That is the entire objective: how can we find fiscal savings? There is no real consideration of what the human cost of it is. Really, the only way to know that is to go out and talk to the people affected. I would like to see more of that in our legislation\u2014that we are actually hearing from New Zealanders about how they are going to be affected.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000379\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002258f935f1-6646-40ab-9d99-17029396850c\u0022\u003EI have to acknowledge what Ms Jacinda Ardern said earlier. We really do need to have a debate about the sustainability of superannuation, and we need to start having that debate now. Let us imagine if this National Government, for example, was going to be forced to deal with that problem, which is a problem of debt. It is interesting to hear those members saying that we are not willing to engage with the problems that we are facing, when in fact it is about choices, and some of the debt problems we are facing have been created by this Government\u2019s choices. Although it is quite happy to spend billions on tax cuts for the rich, it is looking to find fiscal solutions elsewhere and savings elsewhere. It is not willing to have a debate about superannuation. But if National is in Government in 2020\u2014which it probably will not be\u2014when this starts to become a serious problem, it seems to me, by the example that has been shown today, that it would not engage with New Zealanders, not have a conversation about it, but just wait until Budget day and rush it through under urgency without any sort of consideration or advanced warning. I think that is really unfortunate. That is really all I have to say. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022 data-id=\u002276488efd1d7a4cacaad49832909ba6eb\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000380\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002276488efd1d7a4cacaad49832909ba6eb\u0022\u003EMIKE SABIN (National\u2014Northland):\u003C/span\u003E I just want to reflect back on the rather bizarre and stunning contribution from across the floor in New Zealand First. The member Brendan Horan suggested that perhaps I should take what he considered to be a bovine-manure sandwich\u2014referring to the Budget\u2014to my colleagues in the north and ask them to eat that. Well, I would suggest to this House that that member must have been eating a few too many of those sandwiches himself, because that is exactly what has been coming out of his mouth this morning. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000381\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003EWhat is this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, about? This is about $34 million worth of savings over the next 4 years. This is about sustainable management of long-term residential care. That is what New Zealanders care about. This Budget has been about investing in education, in 21st century schools. This Budget has been about science and innovation. This Budget has been about investing in infrastructure. This Budget has been about the future focus of our welfare reforms and our health sector. This Budget has been about investing in growth, about investing in New Zealanders while not spending taxpayers\u2019 money to do it. That is what our colleagues across the floor did for 9 years: spend up large and do not worry about it\u2014someone will have to clean that up tomorrow. Well, that is not good enough. This Government\u2019s responsible Budget is for the times and it is what Kiwis want, deserve, and need. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000382\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022721a14ca-e9d5-4c2e-b3ef-03d03e4fea07\u0022\u003EWhat else is changing? What else is changing? We are increasing funding for aged residential care beds by $82 million over 4 years. There is an additional $10 million over 4 years for community dementia services; that might be very handy for that member Mr O\u2019Rourke in the very near future, I would suggest. That is an additional $46 million on home care; that will rise next year to $57 million. This bill is about getting the balance right. It is about keeping the course and getting New Zealanders back into surplus by 2014-15. New Zealanders know it is not easy out there. They know it is not. They have changed with the times, as have we. Unfortunately, the only people who have not changed with the times are the people sitting on that side of the House, and long may that continue.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022251e8b78476f46bca5fb87524676c975\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a second time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000383\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022a2f5a0d18d2e42b5bb0735601b5d68f3\u0022\u003EIn Committee\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022ed8048192dfe4e24afe80e8dded1d473\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000384\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ed8048192dfe4e24afe80e8dded1d473\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: The House is in Committee on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Kia ora t\u0101tou, n\u014D reira e te Whare, e ng\u0101 iwi, e ng\u0101 reo, e ng\u0101 hau e wh\u0101. T\u0113n\u0101 koutou, t\u0113n\u0101 koutou, t\u0113n\u0101 koutou katoa. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000385\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e0192ed9-5715-4f6c-bd52-8db4f3466087\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d3fe8ba9bb284d91b71a7213b20429f8\u0022\u003EHon David Cunliffe\u003C/span\u003E: Fa\u2018afetai lava. Fa\u2018afetai lava.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000386\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c7a6a172078645d9bde2dab0e90ca040\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: The Hon David Cunliffe has reminded me that it is Samoan Language Week, so talofa lava. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000387\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fb742fa17fd04e959b0144ddcc7f5683\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: Talofa lava.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000388\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002221696e63be3c4810b55fc2e91ed9172a\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Let us get back to business. The question is that Part 1 stand part.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000389\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022de0691443fa24f5e88eea642004cb9fc\u0022\u003EPart 1  Applicable asset thresholds: Indexation\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u0022b76eb6d837b343f8bac0c1bac8196ba3\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000390\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022b76eb6d837b343f8bac0c1bac8196ba3\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Taloha ni, Mr Chair, and talofa lava, manuia le aso, in Samoan Language Week. It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development, in her first reading speech mentioned that this is a priority for the Government. Although the debate has been robust, I would like to take a little bit more of a serious approach in the Committee stage.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000391\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d38bd26d8b42485595cc0df218105d40\u0022\u003ETim Macindoe\u003C/span\u003E: Oh no!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000392\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224d9ef36a6f0a453692ccd3d41d49bb44\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, I am sorry, Mr Macindoe. I will take a slightly more serious approach in my Committee stage contribution, because I wish that this was a priority for the Government. The aged-care sector and the way that we look after our older New Zealanders are very, very serious issues going forward. The fact that Part 1 introduces indexation as opposed to raising the threshold by $10,000 per annum does not really do a lot in terms of addressing some of the serious structural issues that we will face soon in terms of looking after our older New Zealanders.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000393\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EWe need a much, much broader approach to looking after our elders, and that is why we believe that in terms of this change, the indexation to the CPI, it would have been good in this instance for New Zealanders who are affected and New Zealanders who are concerned to have the opportunity to speak at a select committee hearing. I would like to ask the Minister why this bill is going through under urgency, and why New Zealanders are not going to be able to have their say in a select committee hearing. Having spoken to Roy Reid last night, I know that he is very concerned about the fact that this will provide New Zealanders with a disincentive to save for their retirement. As I have earlier spoken about at the first and second readings of this bill, there is also a difference of opinion from the Aged Care Association. It is welcoming this move.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000394\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EBut I would have liked the opportunity, as the Labour Party spokesperson on aged care, to ask questions of those people and to hear the opinions of Kiwis who have concerns about how their parents or their grandparents are being cared for, and to hear how this change might affect them. So again, I put forward my question to the Minister as to the rationale for this bill going through Parliament under urgency, and I ask why those people who will have concerns out there in the community are not being given the opportunity to make a submission at a select committee hearing. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000395\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EPart 1 introduces a change to the asset threshold for residential care for our elderly. In the first year, according to the regulatory impact statement, there will be savings of $4.5 million. There is also an estimation, I guess, from the Ministry of Health that this will affect around 170 residents at any one time. This does not address the issue that the aged-care sector and Kiwi families are facing at the moment. It is tinkering. We have heard from the opposite side of the Chamber that this is a measure for achieving a sustainable long-term plan for the care of our elderly. But in the first year, we are going to look at $4.5 million and in the fourth year this is going to be increased to $16.4 million. So in no way does this significantly address the issues that we as a country have to\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000396\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ee9536baf80441f7859aca2dd53ea726\u0022\u003EHon Ruth Dyson\u003C/span\u003E: Would that pay off Government debt?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000397\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a4ae2d25daa044398b262ee945987530\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: No, it will not pay off Government debt. It in no way addresses the significant challenge that we face in terms of our elderly. The $4.5 million in the first year will pretty much pay for the pens and the paper clips at the Ministry of Health. So the reason why the Government is, in Part 1, changing from the $10,000 threshold to indexation to the CPI troubles me in terms of whether or not this Government has a long-term plan or a long-term vision in this area. One would think not, because this is the bill that is before the Committee and that is troublesome. If the big silver bullet from the Government is CPI indexation of the thresholds, and not what has been practised for the last, I believe, 7 or 8 years, then we as a nation are in big trouble if we do not have any more\u2014[Bell rung] Mr Chair.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000398\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002271c9549787be43f798ab13866d4239d4\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: I call the honourable member Kris Faafoi.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000399\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220e9646b38095422792d2358c9fe27277\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to make just one more point.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000400\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00221dbd2811-8e58-4ffb-848d-31c0eaa9690a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022451d12c8ea2a4c71bbbcf3b7ae90721e\u0022\u003EChris Hipkins\u003C/span\u003E: Make a few more.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000401\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ced14305e421456e84c97531cf517107\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Make a few more\u2014OK. Actually, sorry, there are two more points I want to raise. One is the way that this bill has been introduced to the House, through the Budget process. We have had clarification since the debate began on the bill. In the beginning we heard that it was not mentioned at all in the Budget speech from the Minister of Finance, and we have confirmed that. That is a fact. We have trawled through the press releases looking for a press release on the issue. We were not able to find one, but we were able to find a press release in the name of the Minister of Health, the Hon Tony Ryall, where there is a very fleeting mention of the measure that is being debated at the moment. There were one and a half sentences in a press release and there was not one mention in the Budget speech about this change to the thresholds, from the increases of $10,000 each year to CPI indexation. If this is a priority for the Government, it is not cheering it, and it is not putting it out there as a priority at the moment.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022 data-id=\u00221894c2b0fe904d9988b0b0ea797b979b\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000402\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00221894c2b0fe904d9988b0b0ea797b979b\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON (Labour\u2014Port Hills):\u003C/span\u003E I was, I must admit, expecting the Minister of Health to take a call on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, because, as my colleague Kris Faafoi, the member of Parliament for Mana, has just explained, after searching and searching and searching for a press release in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett or the Hon Jo Goodhew, the current Minister for Senior Citizens, or the Minister of Health announcing to the public that not only was the asset-testing regime being changed but it was being frozen, and that this change in legislation was going to be put through all stages under urgency without giving the public any opportunity to have a say at all, I thought that the Minister of Health would be taking a call. Because it was the Minister of Health who made this massive announcement, but not as a press release, titled \u201CAsset testing regime to change\u201D, or \u201CBreach of contract with 170 residents in residential care\u201D, or \u201CMassive investment in New Zealand\u2019s economic growth because of a saving this financial year of $4.5 million\u201D. No, it was just one and a half sentences, snuck halfway down in a press release announcing all the other major changes in the health budget. So it was not even in the name of the Minister who introduced the legislation and whose name will remain on this change in the statute. The Minister in charge of the legislation said nothing to the public about this. The Minister for Senior Citizens made no public comment at all in relation to the asset-testing regime, despite her portfolio giving her the advocacy mandate for senior citizens in New Zealand. So I would expect the Minister of Health to take a call. I thought he would take a call immediately after my colleague Kris Faafoi, but he did not do that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000403\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003ESitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000404\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002283620c9d5ef14c1aa8093fe64e1dae02\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON\u003C/span\u003E: Talofa to you, Mr Chairman. First of all, I want to express my disappointment that despite acknowledging Samoan Language Week you did not acknowledge to the senior whip from Labour and other members of the House that it is also Hug a Ginga Day. You may want to take the opportunity before the House rises later on to address that with the many members of the House. The Hon Kate Wilkinson is smiling in anticipation of this, so I look forward to the Hon Kate Wilkinson leading the queue to have that interaction with the Chairman. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000405\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EI am really pleased to conclude my first contribution in the Committee stage of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill by repeating my call that I made prior to the lunch adjournment to the Minister of Health, or indeed to the Minister for Social Development, to take a call in this Committee stage and explain to, particularly, the 170 current residents in residential care why the $4.5 million that they are being asked to pay this year is necessary. Why is it necessary for them to contribute that amount of money, given the range of other options that I am sure both Ministers considered? Why is that being described totally incorrectly by National members as the way of securing the long-term sustainability of the asset-testing regime? Because it is not. In fact, what this does is fundamentally alter the asset-testing regime, as was very appropriately commented on by Kevin Hague in his earlier contribution to this debate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000406\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EWhat it actually means is outlined very well in what I do not think is the greatest regulatory impact statement that I have ever seen, but perhaps it was because the officials did not have very much notice to put it together, but certainly the fiscal savings, which is all the regulatory impact statement describes, are very appropriately laid out. For a person who currently is under a contractual understanding that their asset threshold would be at $220,000, the CPI indexation would mean that it would be at $213,297, and that is with the assumption that there is a 2 percent increase in the CPI from year to March 2013 and onwards. As I said, that is outlined in the regulatory impact statement. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000407\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EA lot of National members do not seem to think that this is a problem. You know, what does it matter if older people who are in a rest home have to have fewer assets before they qualify for this asset-testing regime? But what it actually means for the average resident, again according to the regulatory impact statement, is that they will have to pay an extra $70 a day, and the difference between the current amount and the new amount is that they will not become eligible for the full income subsidy for 96 days longer than they currently would. Again, National members would say \u201CWell, older people are a problem. What\u2019s 96 days?\u201D. I have heard in speech after speech in the earlier stages of this debate National members referring to older people as a problem. I find that offensive. I also think that it indicates that they are totally out of touch with reality if they think that the additional 96 days of paying $70 per day is not much. It is a lot, and particularly it is a lot when you face the harsh reality of the fact that the average stay in a rest home for older New Zealanders is now around 18 months. The brutal reality of this is that these people do not have very much longer to live. That is borne out by the facts. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000408\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EYou would think\u2014Mr Chairman, I apologise for referring to you in that manner\u2014one would think that at most times, at all times preferably, but certainly at the time when people are nearing the end of their life, this would be the very time that they should be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. Instead, what people who are facing or living in residential care are being told is that without them having an opportunity to have a say personally, or through an advocacy organisation such as Grey Power, or an organisation such as Age Concern, or through their family members, and without any opportunity for them to have a say to a select committee, the asset-testing regime is being completely changed. The threshold levels are being effectively frozen, rather than progressively increased so that the asset-testing regime would completely phase out, as was our commitment in 2004 in the legislation, and at this time people are being treated with total disdain and disrespect. I find that offensive. I am really, really puzzled that neither the Minister for Social Development, nor the Minister of Health, let alone the Minister who should be the advocacy Minister, the Minister for Senior Citizens\u2014none of them\u2014have bothered taking a substantial call and explaining to people why this fundamental policy change. Instead of having a progressive phasing-out of asset testing, we are now moving to the freezing of assets, and we are doing this under urgency, with not one single member of the public being entitled to have a say to a select committee. How can that be justified? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000409\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EIf this is the answer to the financial situation that the Government insists New Zealand is facing\u2014$4.5 million being saved in the next financial year from older New Zealanders who are at such a high level of health need that they are in a residential facility\u2014then heaven help the future of this country. I think it is offensive that we do this sort of legislation under urgency, when there is clearly no need. The only reason that the Government could justify this legislation under urgency is if, failing this, on 1 July we would fall over as a country, financially. I do not think that $4.5 million is going to save us from that crisis, if that is as bad as it can be. There is no reason for this to go through Parliament under urgency. Every older New Zealander should be saying to their National member of Parliament: \u201CHow dare you treat us with such disrespect.\u201D I am sure they will. I have seen the press statements from Grey Power. I have had phone calls and email messages from different branches of Grey Power, and indeed from Age Concern, from around the country. People are so upset that without any notification, without any justification, this has now been rammed through under urgency, with the backing of National, the M\u0101ori Party, the ACT Party, and United Future. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000410\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThis was not part of the National Party\u2019s great plan for the future, outlined during the election campaign. Not once did I hear my National Party opponent, or any other member of the National Party, say that in order to get through the next 3 years we are going to have to freeze the asset-testing regime for older New Zealanders in rest homes or hospital-level care. Not once was that mentioned.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022 data-id=\u0022ba6d6e364c11408493581ae02ea01b47\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000411\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ba6d6e364c11408493581ae02ea01b47\u0022\u003EDENIS O\u2019ROURKE (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E This Budget, as I said in the first reading, is a penny-pinching Budget, and this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is the most pathetic of the penny-pinching measures in it. It imposes costs on the elderly, and it confers absolutely no benefits whatsoever on them anywhere in it. So for them it is a zero Budget. It is a zero care Budget for the elderly.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000412\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EIn the first reading I referred to the Prime Minister, Mr John Key, as \u201CMr Australia\u201D because of his policies and intentions to ensure that many of our most talented young people will disappear to Australia as a result of Government policy. But maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to him as \u201CMr Fagin\u201D, because he is pinching pennies from the pockets of the elderly and, of course, from newspaper delivery boys. That is the level at which we see the National Government\u2019s pitch to the elderly in this Budget. It is an insult to the elderly of this country, and it follows an insult by the Prime Minister to the elderly during the last election campaign in which the Prime Minister referred to New Zealand First supporters dying off. Of course, in fact, more and more New Zealanders are going to be reaching retirement age, so it is the opposite, in effect, to that which the Prime Minister referred to. It will be his problem to regain their confidence in National policies. Well, if he did want to do that, this Budget sure ain\u2019t going anywhere near there, and certainly not with the measure proposed in this bill. They will lose confidence in National, the elderly people of this country, in droves.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000413\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EWhere is the strategy to deal with the elderly? Where is the strategy in this Budget or in Government policy to support the elderly long term, to ensure funding of superannuation for 65-year-olds in the future? There is nothing but silence for the elderly in this Budget, except, of course, for this bill, which will only make life harder for them. Only New Zealand First can be relied on to support superannuation for the elderly from 65 years permanently. At least the Labour Party is open about its policy to increase the retirement age to 67, but that will never be adopted by New Zealand First.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000414\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EThe Government was hoping to slide this bill through unnoticed, and when you have a look at it you can see that that is not surprising. Maybe the Government just forgot to do a press release, or perhaps could not do one in this case. Well, I could help the Government. I could help it do the press release. I could tell the people of New Zealand how the elderly are being treated, and how the elderly are being punished in this Budget and by this measure. The Government did not consult, did not assess the negative effects on the elderly or their families, and did not allow reference to a select committee. It did not care about the elderly. It did not care about their views. That has been typical of its approach to this all along. This is a disappointing Budget for the elderly. Compare it with New Zealand First policy. If we were part of Government right now, we would be looking at a 10 percent reduction in power bills for the elderly\u2014for SuperGold card holders\u2014and a $10 cap on visits to the doctor, with the first year free altogether. Those are the sorts of policies that the elderly in this country want to see\u2014not the kind of thing we see in this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000415\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002247c29b78-eee0-4c91-afdf-7b07be780e1a\u0022\u003EI want to talk next about the Minister for Social Development\u2019s claim about indexation somehow preserving the assets. What utter nonsense that is. In fact, this policy ensures that those assets will be whittled away, and whittled away sooner. More people will be forced to reach the threshold sooner, as well. Otherwise, how, indeed, could the money be saved at all? National is making a political football out of this issue. This is not what the elderly want, and not what the people of New Zealand want, either. What they do need\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022 data-id=\u0022c8108f37a387422ab3cbbe3f4850ce6c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000416\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c8108f37a387422ab3cbbe3f4850ce6c\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING (Labour\u2014Rongotai):\u003C/span\u003E I would really appreciate the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paula Bennett, answering three questions: why have we got this policy, why now, and why is it being imposed retrospectively? Because from our position on this side of the House, this is a sneaky, grubby little move by a money-grubbing Government; a dirty little secret that it kept right up until it tabled the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in this House to be passed under urgency with no consultation with the public of New Zealand, particularly older New Zealanders. It is a nasty little secret that it did not have the fortitude to tell New Zealanders about before this Budget. Why not? Why did it not have the fortitude to tell the older people of New Zealand? Why not consult with Grey Power, ask an organisation that represents hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders whether it supported this move?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000417\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EWell, I can tell the people who are listening that this measure will be the thin end of the wedge for older New Zealanders, because I have seen it all before. It was National that brought in asset testing. It was National that made promises to older New Zealanders and broke them. And now we have it bringing back a sneaky little deal to undermine services and support for older New Zealanders, and doing it under urgency with no consultation.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000418\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E Maybe those who are listening would also like to know that the Rates Rebate Scheme has been frozen in this Budget.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000419\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002253db0b82c6754379b1139b1416a4aecf\u0022\u003EHon Ruth Dyson\u003C/span\u003E: What!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000420\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ddea23be89be4d3b863eb6ea88bfcb96\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING\u003C/span\u003E: Yes, its funding has been frozen in this Budget. The Government did not tell the public about that. They might like to know that there will be no funding to tell people about the Rates Rebate Scheme. Keep them in the dark, do not tell the older folk that there is something that could help them\u2014keep it hidden. That is the thin end of the wedge for me. This is an agenda that is going to attack those who are the most vulnerable. As you heard from Ruth Dyson, who was the Minister who introduced the legislation that changed the regime for asset testing so that it could be phased out over a period of time, older people in New Zealand are staying in rest homes, on average, for 18 months. It was not that long ago that people going into rest homes could be there for between 8 years and 10 years. Today they stay longer at home\u2014without the support they ought to have; it has been cut\u2014and they spend a very short time in rest homes. This Government, in a sneaky way, wants to penalise them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000421\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI also want to say what a superficial regulatory impact statement we received from the Ministry of Health. I am incredibly disappointed with the regulatory impact statement. If you read the first page of it, is the Government worried about older people? No, the first thing it is worried about is making sure it will not \u201Cimpose significant additional cost on business\u201D, it will not \u201Cimpair their property rights\u201D or the \u201Cmarket competition\u201D, and it will provide only \u201Cminor costs\u201D on providers because they have to inform patients. Where in the front of this regulatory impact statement is concern about the older people? Why is it about business? Have those members become so devoid of care about the people in this society that when they write a regulatory impact statement it has more to do with about how it suits business than it does about older people?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000422\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThen you look at the consultation. What consultation took place on this bill? Well, the Ministry of Health talked to itself. It talked to the Ministry of Social Development and Treasury. But, of course, it had to maintain Budget secrecy over this. We are talking about $4.5 million in the first year. The ministry said that it had to have Budget secrecy over that, and that was why it could not consult. That is a nonsense. It could have gone out and found out how it affected people. Then when you look to see whether there is going to be any monitoring, evaluation, or review of it, you see that, no, there is going to be none at all. There is going to be no look to see what impact this measure has on older New Zealanders.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000423\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI am incredibly disappointed in this Government once again attacking the most vulnerable of people, our older people, who by the very fact that they are in a rest home are vulnerable. They are not there unless they really are in the final twilight years of their lives. Then for the Government to bring in this measure under urgency, secretly, is despicable\u2014despicable. On this side of the House we oppose the way that the Government is going about it. This is not what you do to New Zealanders who have worked so hard in their lives to support the rest of us.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022 data-id=\u002231ebfae2487240e3bb127c3986755e6d\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000424\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002231ebfae2487240e3bb127c3986755e6d\u0022\u003EDARIEN FENTON (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E It is a pleasure to follow that very excellent speech made by the Hon Annette King. One of the things about this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, that has really shocked me is the derisory approach of this Government. We had a 1-minute speech from the Minister for Social Development in introducing the bill, and a 2-minute speech from the junior Minister Jo Goodhew when introducing the second reading. There was nothing in the Budget speech. We pored through the press releases and, finally, after much searching, found a paragraph that was deeply buried in a press release. Nothing was talked about it in the Budget yesterday. This Government has kept its secret. It is the dirty\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000425\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220af06a51d6934190846b31d21c12e64d\u0022\u003EKris Faafoi\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s a sentence.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000426\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022bf2b1813b5724d23bba2dbb2cba68263\u0022\u003EDARIEN FENTON\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, it is a sentence. It is a sentence\u2014not even a paragraph\u2014telling the older people of New Zealand that this major change is being considered by this Parliament under urgency. If this is such an important conversation for us to be having, why cannot people participate in it? Why cannot people have a say? Why is it that we have to have this debate on a Friday afternoon, under urgency, when all of the people who will be affected by it\u2014people currently in residential care and people who will be in residential care in the future, including most of us in this House, I would imagine\u2014cannot participate? Why can they not have a say? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000427\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EAs I have been listening to the debate, I have been thinking about a personal example. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are in residential care. One is in a private hospital, and one is in a rest home. My father-in-law is 93 years old, and my mother-in-law is 88 years old. They have only recently gone into residential care, when it got far too much for them to stay at home. In fact, my mother-in-law went in first, and then my father-in-law followed. I want to talk a little bit about their lives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000428\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EMy father-in-law was an Anglican minister. He was an Anglican minister in the far north. He used to give half of his income to the poor people of his community. My mother-in-law and father-in-law struggled and scraped on a minister\u2019s income, year in and year out, giving half of it away to the poor people whom they wanted to support, because they are good people. They are good Christian people. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000429\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EEventually, they were able to save enough to buy their own home. They bought their own home and they paid it off bit by bit. That is the only asset that they have. It is the only thing they own. They are now in residential care, they are paying for themselves\u2014they are paying the bills themselves\u2014and, eventually, they will get to the point where the asset value of their home means that they will have to pay a whole lot more. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000430\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EWhen I think about my father-in-law\u2019s life and my mother-in-law\u2019s life, I think it is so undignified\u2014so undignified\u2014that they are going to be listening to this and hearing about this, in this debate, under urgency, in this Parliament on a Friday afternoon, in secret. They will say to me at the weekend: \u201CDarien, why could we not have a say on this? We have lived and worked hard. We have tried to be good people. We have been good citizens. We have stood by the principles and values that we grew up with.\u201D Love thy neighbour is one of them, and treat other people as you would be treated yourself.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000431\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EAll of those principles they have lived by and worked hard by. Here they are, and here they will be, in their twilight years, in residential care, listening to this and finding out that this Government does not believe that they should have any say in this change. I think it is not only undignified but completely disrespectful. The way this Government has gone about this\u2014approaching the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill in urgency\u2014is just appalling. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000432\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EAs we know, this is a Budget that is picking on kids\u2014and we debated that last night\u2014who do not even earn the minimum wage. They are on $4 or $5 per hour. It is appalling. Students are picked on too, and now it is a case of \u201CLet\u2019s get stuck into the older people. Let\u2019s not talk to them, and let\u2019s not let them have a say. Let\u2019s forget about them.\u201D The Government does not really care about the people living in rest homes. Do you know what it is? It is peanuts that we are dealing with here. It is absolute peanuts.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022 data-id=\u0022e587042d246442cc8c734f607e701aff\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000433\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022e587042d246442cc8c734f607e701aff\u0022\u003EBARBARA STEWART (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E It is my first call on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, and I am very delighted to get up and take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. We in New Zealand First believe that this bill is an ambush on senior citizens. Nothing was specifically mentioned yesterday. We heard nothing in the Prime Minister\u2019s speech about it. There have been no press releases from the Minister either that we have seen. We have had a look at the website. Nothing has been said about this. It just snuck in under the quiet of urgency, which is really quite shameful. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000434\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003EWhy on earth are we attacking senior citizens in this way? Private saving is what has been flagged as the way for the Government to get out of trouble, and we are all expected to save in order to dig the country out of the mess it is in. But this legislation shows New Zealanders that it is not worthwhile to actually save, because a good portion of your savings will be whittled away to pay for your care. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000435\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003EI cannot understand why Grey Power and other senior organisations were not invited to have a say on this particular legislation. What do we have in the regulatory impact statement? It states: \u201CThe analysis of fiscal savings was undertaken by the Ministry of Health with limited consultation with the Ministry of Social Development and the Treasury. Consultation was limited in order to maintain budget confidentiality.\u201D Then we have the audacity to have this legislation snuck through the House under the guise of urgency.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000436\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220bfa5b74-8933-458a-99d4-bbd75d9898d0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f994a6b7053f4c82b87f38dfc6d2babe\u0022\u003EChris Auchinvole\u003C/span\u003E: Snuck? Snuck? Barbara!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000437\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002264cc62410e124994828d53f70102983c\u0022\u003EBARBARA STEWART\u003C/span\u003E: It is sneaking through under the guise of urgency. I do not know why the views of this part of society\u2014a vulnerable section of society\u2014are being ignored totally by this bill being snuck through Parliament. We want a brighter future for our senior citizens, but where is that brighter future? I can assure National members that it is definitely not at this part of a person\u2019s life. When you get to living in a rest home, it does not look very good at all. We might as well all have the brighter future while we are younger, and spend as much as we can, because the Government is going to remove the savings anyway. It is a total disincentive to saving. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000438\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003EI was quite interested to hear one of the National members say this morning that we are boldly going where no man has gone before, and I say they are right. They are right, and we do not like the direction that this is going in. It is negative, it is penny-pinching, it is miserable, and it does not address the fundamentals that are actually needed to put this country back on the right track again. Where is the brighter future for our seniors? It has gone. It is not even there. It is a bleak outlook for this particular group, and it is a shame that the legislation has to go through the House under urgency when it need not have. It is not an urgent piece of legislation. There was plenty of time to consult with other groups and to let our seniors actually have a say on this particular legislation. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000439\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00220daaf9fb-1a1f-4d31-848a-fd13cb1a2c5a\u0022\u003EWe in New Zealand First think this is an ambush on our senior citizens, and we will not be supporting this legislation in any way. It is too shameful to support.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022 data-id=\u002263e80a6f57a549c7a678995d2a4ce650\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000440\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002263e80a6f57a549c7a678995d2a4ce650\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF (Labour\u2014Mt Roskill):\u003C/span\u003E I have been listening to this debate for some time. I was not going to take a call, but I noticed that the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development, has stayed silent\u2014stayed silent\u2014all the way through this debate. I want the Minister to get up on her hind legs and explain to me, to the Committee, and to New Zealanders why it is that during the whole election campaign she said nothing to the elderly people of this country about what she was intending to do\u2014not one word. No wonder this Government is sneaking the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill through under urgency, because it would not have the guts to stand up\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000441\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022486e8e7606ca4804bde2bb4e4b1a0dc7\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000442\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222c74440b33a64bdf9a45d4445bdb7640\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014and tell the people who appeared before the select committee why it was doing this. It would not have the intestinal fortitude, if you prefer those words, Mr Chairman, to say to the people of New Zealand that it stuck this in and it did not tell them about it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000443\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003EI heard the Prime Minister during the campaign say the grand words \u201CYou judge a society on how it treats not its wealthiest and strongest citizens, but its most vulnerable.\u201D What weasel words they turned out to be. This is a Government that is hitting the vulnerable in everything it has done in this Budget. It is even picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls of this country\u2014kids, who cannot vote. It is taking a tiny amount of money in fiscal terms, but a lot of money in terms of what those kids get. It is picking on the people who send their kids to public schools. Is it not ironic that we have a Government, whose leaders send their kids to private schools that advertise the fact that they have lower class sizes, telling the parents who send their kids to public schools that class sizes do not matter? That is a double standard. There is a word you cannot use in the House, but everybody in this country knows what I am talking about. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000444\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003ENow the Government is doing it to the elderly. It is a miserable amount of money\u2014$4.5 million\u2014but what does it tell the elderly people of this country? These are people who have worked all of their lives and have built up some sort of asset. They are not wealthy people; probably the only thing they have is a home and few possessions. The Government is telling those people that in the twilight years of their lives, they will have to spend those assets rather than die with the dignity of knowing that there is something they can pass on to their kids. I have to say that that is pretty pathetic. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000445\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003EI say to the Minister to get up on your feet and explain to the country why you are doing this. Tell the country why you never gave any warning that that is what the re-election of a National Government might mean.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000446\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222d183cb56de443e48af2d4066770a4b8\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: What\u2019s their agenda?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000447\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002258d235ccc94d4334a3ccc2b1c6fb01ee\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: We said during the campaign that there was a secret agenda, but oh no, no\u2014no secret agenda! National members said they were upfront and nice, that they smile and they talk optimistically. Then they come in, straight after the election, with the first Budget, and do they hit the people who have a lot of money\u2014people like the Prime Minister, who got another $1,000 a week in tax cuts? No! They are sacrosanct. The wealthy and the powerful will be looked after by the National Government. This bill is a further example of how a National Government picks on the most vulnerable. Yes, the people that you are affecting, Minister, will be dead by the time of the next election. You will not suffer any political consequences, but what is the Minister doing\u2014I know you, Mr Chairman, would not consider an underhand thing like this. The Government is picking on the people who are vulnerable, the people who have least to give, and the people who cannot hurt them politically. That is, to use the term of my colleague Annette King, a despicable act by this Government. It is picking on these people. At one end there are the paper boys and girls who get about $2 an hour, and at the other end are the people in the twilight years of their lives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000448\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003ERuth Dyson mentioned that the average time that a person is spending in a rest home now is about 8 months\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000449\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002221d25b41027644ef864ccdf7bed98bdd\u0022\u003EHon Ruth Dyson\u003C/span\u003E: 18.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000450\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f40549ed525c43898aa0d078eccabdf0\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: \u201418 months, I am sorry. It is the last 18 months of their lives, and this Government is taking advantage of their vulnerability by sneaking in a measure that it had not warned the public about. It never had the intestinal fortitude to tell the public what it was going to do before the election, and it does not even have the courage to stand up in this Chamber and defend the measure that it is pushing through. Why can this not go to a select committee? There is no\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022 data-id=\u0022c02e3658cb01475dbd9703781adee31f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000451\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c02e3658cb01475dbd9703781adee31f\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: I call the honourable member Asenati Taylor. Talofa lava.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022 data-id=\u002290ad7904ecf4445ea9bea961fc3bceba\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000452\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002290ad7904ecf4445ea9bea961fc3bceba\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Talofa lava. It is \u201CLole-Taylor\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000453\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002204021c1f8cf3426fb7e56ec051768699\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Lole-Taylor, then.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000454\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022763434e5f5314cecaf2ae146b5f59fe4\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR\u003C/span\u003E: Thank you. The argument that the New Zealand population is one that is ageing and we do not have enough care facilities to cope with demand is a pathetic excuse to cut down on services. Why does this Government not take some of its newly proposed Future Investment Fund and invest in our elderly? The injection of nearly $12 million into aged care should be used to open up new aged care facilities. This National Government is willing to put $40 million into dementia services, hoping\u2014hoping\u2014that the elderly will forget about the new Budget measures. Would the Minister open her home to those who will be reduced to a less-than-dignified state of living? Because that is exactly what will happen as the result of this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. That is exactly what will happen. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000455\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EThe Minister for Social Development has dumped this bill on to us, knowing full well that this had been planned for weeks if not months in advance. The Minister has dumped this bill on to the New Zealand elderly, and she has dumped this bill on the New Zealanders who are vulnerable. Shame! Shame\u2014it has to be said. The Government is paying into those big pockets of its mates, but bugger the rest\u2014I am not sure if I am allowed to use that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000456\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e549699a83c6430cb394f3384cf3c240\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: No, you are not.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000457\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ff3b92f34756448eb9b82a464884ea64\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR\u003C/span\u003E: I apologise. The threshold for the subsidy is now dependent on the rate of inflation\u2014CPI. This means that at any stage the threshold is vulnerable and can either not change or change very, very minimally. What we get is the forcing of the hand of the elderly to sell off their assets that they have worked so hard for all their lives. Paula Bennett has introduced this bill because she needs money for the welfare budget, so we take from the old in order to provide for welfare reforms that are destroying New Zealand society. The Government has looked at this subsidy because it did not realise that the 10 percent increase in thresholds would be yearly, and it was worried that this meant the window for the subsidy would widen dramatically. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000458\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First does not support this bill. It is a direct undermining of elderly people in residential care. Elderly people will be forced to either sell their assets or apply for a residential care loan in order to pay for residential care in a rest home. Setting the rate of the applicable asset threshold used in determining the amount residents in aged residential care have to contribute to the costs of their care to change according to the CPI gives uncertainty to the scheme. It will most probably now take longer for the elderly, based on the value of their assets, to become eligible for the residential care subsidy. The elderly will be forced to find other means of paying for residential care. Some may even become more dependent on their children. Of course, that is the usual situation. It is something that happens quite a lot in the Polynesian community, especially those in South Auckland\u2014something that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga should be familiar with. Even member Alfred Ngaro should know better, or even Dr Cam Calder\u2014that is right. They are from South Auckland and they should be familiar with what it is like for the Polynesian people in South Auckland to try to save for assets. Now they will find it a lot harder, much harder, to even get into residential care. It is National\u2019s direct and quick way to try to cut areas in welfare, not only to force New Zealand to sell its assets but also now to force the elderly to sell their assets. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022bc7ed1dd799c42ae984ea3f219483923\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 be agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 53\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 10; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EPart 1 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000459\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00227bd37e41de7948c4a80e70d7030179dc\u0022\u003EPart 2  Applicable asset thresholds: General\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u00229a90786f5fb3485baa81bb86d8465648\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000460\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00229a90786f5fb3485baa81bb86d8465648\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Thank you for giving me the chance to speak to Part 2 of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. In 1967 the Tremeloes, a band that I am sure many of the people who will be affected by this bill were fans of, released a song called \u201CSilence is Golden\u201D. The chorus to that song is \u201CSilence is golden but my eyes still see\u201D. The people out beyond these walls know exactly what is happening here. They still see what is happening here: that this Government is trying to sneak in this piece of legislation, which significantly changes the way in which the threshold for assets for residential care is calculated for them. What will it mean for them? It will mean that it will cost them a lot more money to pay for their residential home care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000461\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E This change was not telegraphed. I cannot see it anywhere in this piece of information, which was sent by the National Party around election time last year. I did not hear Mr Lotu-Iiga out around the traps talking about raising the threshold by the CPI. I did not see any of the members across the other side of the Chamber talking about this. But it is so important that it needs to be rushed through this House under urgency. It is so important that it has to be rushed through this House under urgency, and it was not mentioned once in the Budget speech, at all. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000462\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is so important that this needs to be rushed through in the House under urgency, and how were the New Zealand people told about this? They were told in 1\u00BD lines at the bottom of a press release from the Minister of Health. This is a Budget measure that the Minister in charge of this bill, the Minister for Social Development, said was a priority for her Government in her 1-minute speech in the first reading to the House\u2014in her 1-minute contribution in the first reading in the House. You have got to give Miss Goodhew some praise too, because at least she made a 2-minute speech\u2014a 2-minute speech\u2014in the second reading of this bill, which is now before the Committee. But I will remind you again of that song, \u201CSilence is Golden\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000463\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EI notice that there has been a change in membership for the Minister in the chair, and I would encourage the new Minister in the chair, the Hon Nathan Guy, to maybe perhaps take a call and answer the myriad of questions that have been asked by people on this side of the Chamber as to why this has to be done. If, as Mr Macindoe said in another contribution, this Government wants to tackle the serious issues around aged care, then why bring this in and raise $4.5 million in the first year and, in the fourth year, raise $16.5 million? Thank you very much, you have solved the problems in aged care with that amazing measure that comes in with this bill\u2014with that amazing measure. I say thank you very much to the National Government for sorting out aged care with this bill. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000464\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EIt is ironic that the Minister in charge of this bill had the gall to say that this is a priority when it was not mentioned once in the Budget speech. It got half a mention in a press release, and the Ministers who are in charge of shepherding this bill through the House afforded it 3 minutes of time. We will not even get the chance for the people whom this measure concerns in this area\u2014the 170 people who will be affected in the first year and their families, and the aged-care sector\u2014to have their say, because this bill is not going to a select committee. This is being rushed through this House under urgency. So the process is shameful and awful. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000465\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EYou have got to ask why this is happening. Why is the Government doing this? Why is it picking on the elderly? Why is it picking on the elderly, and, at the other end of the scheme, why is it picking\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000466\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fc2e048e45554e3ebc191f2c54d5f9c6\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: They did kids yesterday.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000467\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223f04d4e60138468fa720cc7271ee160d\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Well, yeah, yesterday was kids\u2019 day and today it is elderlies\u2019 day, and maybe what is going to come beyond this Budget will affect the rest. The Government has already hit all Kiwis with its rise in GST in order to give its mates a tax cut, but I ask what is going to come next. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000468\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is bad leadership, because there are serious issues around aged care that need to be addressed. I went to an aged-care centre in Ian McKelvie\u2019s electorate. It is facing serious issues and it needs some serious thinking done about this issue. But what does it get? What do the residents and the staff at Edale residential home in Marton get? They get this: four pieces of waffle from National, which it claims is going to help sort out aged care in our country. What disrespect in another way can you get from this Government in terms of making sure that our elderly people are looked after? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000469\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis change was not telegraphed in the various statements that were made by all the National Party candidates. Mr Goff mentioned before that Mr Key said during the election debate that we judge a Government on how it treats our elderly. Well, this Government is treating our elderly with disrespect, because it is not giving them and their families and the aged-care sector a chance to come and have their say. It may not like what they say, but at least they should get their chance to have a say. People on the other side of the fence would get to have their say as well\u2014those who agree with these measures. At least they would get their chance to have a say, and we as parliamentarians, who have a duty to make sure that we look after our elderly, would be able to ask questions of those who are concerned about this bill. They are people like the residents at Edale in Marton and people in a number of residential homes in my electorate, as well. Those people deserve to get the chance to have their say, but because we are here on a Friday\u2014well, technically, not on a Friday; this is still Thursday\u2014still talking about this bill under urgency, talking about the way that this bill changes the threshold for assets for residential care, they do not get to have their say. I think that is a shame. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000470\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EIt is a shame that this Government is doing it this way. It had the opportunity to do it properly and to make sure that we had a select committee hearing on what is a serious issue. I just want to repeat again that I ask the Minister in the chair to make a contribution. \u201CSilence is golden but my eyes still see\u201D.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022 data-id=\u0022741bdab51ce640fe94443e94abce4ba4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000471\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022741bdab51ce640fe94443e94abce4ba4\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON (Labour\u2014Port Hills):\u003C/span\u003E I am really pleased to take a brief call on Part 2 of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I want to commend my colleague Kris Faafoi, the member of Parliament for Mana, and back up his request to the Minister in the chair, the Minister for Social Development, to answer the questions that have been raised during the Committee stage. It is not as if we have another opportunity to have these questions addressed. We do not have a select committee process that we could look forward to or look back on; this is it. This is the final stage of the Committee stage of this bill, after which we will move to the third reading, and if the third reading votes follow the pattern of previous votes on this legislation, this will be law before this session of Parliament is over. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000472\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThere is no chance for anyone to have a say. There is no chance for the bigger debate to be had on whether this massive visionary move by the National Government, taking $4.5 million out of the pockets of rest home and hospital care residents, which we are assured by National members will save our country\u2019s economy, was the best or the only measure to take. That debate cannot be had and the Minister has not taken the opportunity to justify that. I am frankly in her court; I would not try to justify it either. I would not hold my portfolio on a continuing basis if I was asked to introduce a bill that I did not agree with, that was offensive, and that was wrong. I am stunned that the Minister for Social Development, the Minister of Health, and the Minister for Senior Citizens have not considered that is an option. I do not know how they can justify doing this retrospectively to older people, who are already in residential care, by changing the regime under which they bought into a contract to have their final months of life supported in the way that was needed. How can they justify this coming to the House at all, let alone under urgency? \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000473\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EEarlier on in the debate we had quite a lot of discussion about how this was signalled to the public. We know that it was not mentioned in the Budget speech. We certainly know it was not mentioned prior to that. The Hon David Carter is in the Chamber and he will recall the many times that we have stood on public platforms in opposition to each other, seeking the candidacy for the Port Hills electorate. During the last election campaign I listened to every word he spoke\u2014you do not have much option, really, when you are on the same stage. I listened very carefully, and not once did the Hon David Carter say to the good people in the Port Hills electorate: \u201CBy the way, we are going to change the asset-testing regime for older people.\u201D I bet the Hon Nathan Guy, who was in the chair earlier, did not mention that to his constituents either, and I bet not a single member of the National Party did. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000474\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThis is a dirty little secret that has been kept under wraps by the National Government, not just until the Budget speech\u2014because it was not mentioned in the Budget speech\u2014but until later in the day. Suddenly we have a bill in the House of Parliament and we are told that it is getting rammed through all stages under urgency. The way it was signalled to the public was hidden in a 1\u00BD line sentence in a press statement by the Hon Tony Ryall\u2014not even the Minister responsible for it\u2014under the heading \u201CHealth receives largest increase in spending in the Budget\u201D. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000475\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E Would anybody read that headline and think: \u201COh, they\u2019re going to put the asset-testing regime on to a holding pattern. They\u2019re going to freeze the asset-testing threshold.\u201D? Nobody who read that press statement would have been able to determine the truth, because this is a dirty little secret. It has been kept from the public until after the Budget speech was read in the House. It has had no opportunity to go to a select committee. There is no opportunity to hear from the 170 residents who are affected by this immediately, and the others who will be affected in the future. I think it is an outrage. It is a breach of the privilege of this Parliament to use urgency for matters that do require the urgent attention of the House. The public should, and I am sure will, feel outraged at this breach.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022 data-id=\u002222f3e86a3d33441ba4d3a6f601afcc6f\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000476\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002222f3e86a3d33441ba4d3a6f601afcc6f\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING (Labour\u2014Rongotai):\u003C/span\u003E The Minister for Social Development has now resumed her seat, in the chair, and I am asking her once again to answer the questions about why the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is being introduced, why now, why it applies retrospectively, and why there was no consultation with anybody, other than a couple of Government departments and her own. Will the Minister stand up and answer those questions, because I know that at this moment Grey Power members are listening to this debate. They have already contacted members of this House, and they are waiting to hear from the Minister why she did not\u2014when she meets with them on a regular basis\u2014raise with them the issue of asset testing, knowing what a sensitive issue this has been over many, many years. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000477\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EWhen National introduced asset testing, it caused an outrage around New Zealand. This Government should have known, when it was going to change it, that there would be many people who would want to know what research, what evidence National had in terms of what the effect would be. I say to the Minister: earn your money. Stand up and answer questions that have been put to you from this side of the Chamber by the parties that are participating in this debate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000478\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI ask a person like Paul Hutchison, who is a man of compassion, why he does not stand up and tell this Committee why he thinks taking $4.5 million from the most vulnerable people in our society is a good idea. Tell us, Dr Hutchison, why doing it secretly is such a good idea. I do not believe that is something that Dr Hutchison would have supported. I suspect that the backbench members of the National Party had absolutely no idea that this policy was going to be introduced. They had no idea that a bill was going to be put on the Table of the House, and they are nothing more than fodder. They are fodder for the National Government. They have to stand up and defend it. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000479\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI ask Chris Auchinvole, who is also a man, I think, who is a thinking person, what he thinks about this bill. How does he feel about being used by Cabinet to defend a measure that, I guarantee, he had no say in? The first this caucus\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000480\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00220268a3ce5ef84d59a04c0bb2e5c73a88\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: Do you even know what clauses we\u2019re talking about right now?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000481\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002260f3590003a343d3b2e2ceaf888242ec\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING\u003C/span\u003E: The first the junior whip would have heard about this measure was when it was taken to their caucus just before the Budget was read. Just before the Budget was read they would have gone in and said: \u201CBy the way, you\u2019ll have to stay here on Friday because we\u2019re introducing a bill that is going to change asset testing in New Zealand.\u201D That is what they would have done. So the cannon fodder on the backbenches is expected to leave this Chamber and go out and defend the decision to all the older folk around New Zealand. Well, you are going to find it heavy weather. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000482\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThe first argument the older folk are going to put to those new backbenchers, who do not seem to be worried about it, is why National did not consult them. They will say: \u201CWhy didn\u2019t you ask us and tell us that that was what you were going to do?\u201D. They will ask why National could not have had the decency and the honesty to go out and say to them that National was thinking about changing the asset-testing regime, and ask them about it. The Government could have said: \u201CThere are a number of ways we could do it. We could leave it as it is, we could do it by the CPI, or we could do it in a number of other ways. What do you think the impact would be?\u201D. If National could have talked to Grey Power, at least it has a big base of members it could go to\u2014a large number of members it could go to and ask what they thought. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000483\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThis is a particularly sneaky piece of legislation. I cannot think of a sneakier piece of legislation in recent times. Mr Auchinvole is laughing about it. I am sorry that he is doing that, because he obviously does not think it affects the older folk in New Zealand. You see, the people whom this does affect are not the wealthy people. Those who have money have no problems when it comes to paying for rest home care. It does not worry them at all, but it certainly worries those who have the least. They are the ones who are affected. Get on your feet, Minister, and answer some questions. That is your job.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022 data-id=\u00227f2f6ed96a204166826e9002c9bf044a\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000484\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00227f2f6ed96a204166826e9002c9bf044a\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF (Labour\u2014Mt Roskill):\u003C/span\u003E I want to pick up where my colleague the Hon Annette King has left off. We have been sitting in this Chamber now for some time. We have been waiting for the Minister for Social Development to get to her feet to justify what she is doing in the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, why she is rushing it through under urgency, why she has not consulted with any group or individual in New Zealand about it, and why she will not have the Government front up at a select committee and explain to people why the National Government kept this as a dirty little secret that it did not tell the electorate about. I am surprised that this Minister has not got to her feet to defend this legislation. She prides herself on being a westie\u2014you know, one of those people who tell it as it is, who are ready to get up and stand behind what they do and justify it. But she has been nailed to her seat. She has not taken the call. She has not answered the questions. She has not had the courage of her convictions to get up to say to the country why she is doing this.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000485\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003EAnd we have that row of backbenchers over there. Maggie Barry is from the North Shore. There are a lot of elderly people on the North Shore. I wonder whether Maggie Barry fronted up before the election and said to them: \u201CWell, I\u2019ve got to tell you this: the Government\u2019s got to make hard calls, and what we\u2019re going to do is stop the process of exempting your assets from asset testing when you\u2019re in the last 18 months of your life.\u201D I wonder whether she got up during the election campaign and said that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000486\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022736a5c0b-8df3-4047-ba26-632ba2798b4c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229dbc40425ef846b6ad97b6746373d5cd\u0022\u003EMaggie Barry\u003C/span\u003E: It wasn\u2019t known at that stage, Phil. I\u2019m not a clairvoyant. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000487\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002251cce57c98ec4459841f39cb4aca59f9\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: Jami-Lee Ross was in a by-election and an election campaign.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000488\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002203e9d2a67a174706935a2101f8126e5c\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: She just said it wasn\u2019t known.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000489\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229348f1776b834ab082a2de61e126df36\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: It was not known! Oh, it was not known. I think that Annette King is right, you know. I think those backbenchers are sitting there like stunned mullets, ashamed, embarrassed, and not prepared to get to their feet to defend their Government, because this bill was dumped on them. They did not know a thing about it. Well, welcome to the world of politics, Maggie Barry! You did not know\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000490\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223c0b26cce816431dbfb8bb384f4cf813\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000491\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022668bae0f365243d9bc80790281522415\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: You did not know about it, but you are\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000492\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022ca76ddd326a44eec96a1a268e57b42e5\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000493\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c17b7616625f4f49a8707bfa06652ea7\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014part of the team and you will have to take responsibility. You will have to be accountable for what you did, but you will not be.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000494\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a68928ea-9dd8-4a30-8e2c-a0f49dfc8bea\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002229971a72d0e24559943425a73f0b3a2e\u0022\u003ELouise Upston\u003C/span\u003E: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is a very longstanding tradition that you are not brought into the debate.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000495\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002207049a1311e2492090da77c190202e6e\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: That is very true and I had pointed it out to the member.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000496\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002247c27425b67a4b64bd5a37caee839160\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: I apologise to the Chairman, because I know that you, Mr Chairman, would not have had anything to do with this. You would have had the courage of your convictions to speak\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000497\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fe757ccd2709462c987c2c5a7dae0f70\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order! The member knows that he cannot challenge someone\u2019s courage. He is a very longstanding member and knows better than anybody else.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000498\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002200f4d990676747a9b00c4023b717e2f4\u0022\u003EHon PHIL GOFF\u003C/span\u003E: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Chairman, far from challenging your courage I was saying you would have had the courage. By inference maybe the others did not\u2014but that is only by inference.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000499\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003EI want to know why this National Government, which knew before the election all of the things that it knows now, never told the people of New Zealand what it intended to do. Why did the National Government keep this as a dirty little secret that it would not share with the country? Did it tell the elderly people of this country what it was going to do? Did it tell the elderly people of this country that it was not going to index the rates rebate, so that those people who had worked hard all their lives and were struggling to pay their rates would not get assistance to match inflation and the high rise in rates that has occurred? Did Government members tell New Zealanders\u2014here is another dirty little secret\u2014that they would remove the promotional budget for the Rates Rebate Scheme? They will not necessarily have what it takes to remove rates rebates, but they do not want people to know about it so that they can take advantage of it. That is another sneaky little secret that those members did not warn people about.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000500\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003EYou know, what is it that this Government has got against the elderly? In the last term it actually took away the home help that many elderly people relied on so that they could stay in their own home. They are being forced out. I was in Kris Faafoi\u2019s electorate during the by-election, and we came across a 91-year-old lady in T\u012Btahi Bay who was being forced into a rest home because the National Government had cut her home care. Now that she has been forced into the rest home, the Government is going to make sure she has to use up more of her assets to be able to meet the costs of care\u2014after it put her in that position. Why is it that this National Government, in everything that it has done in this Budget, has picked on the most vulnerable? From the young paper boys and girls it is now taking away their tax rebate. How pathetic is that? There are 68,000 young people out there in the rain, and the wind, and the cold in Wellington, delivering the newspapers, and the Government takes away their tax credit. It knows that people cannot vote at that age, and it knows that the elderly, the most vulnerable, are not in a position to defend themselves.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000501\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c699e7c6-53b9-470c-a14a-378cb6fc8a04\u0022\u003ENo wonder not one of those backbench members will get to their feet and defend this. No wonder the Minister, time and again, will not take the call. I hope she will, under this provocation. I hope she does have the courage and the conviction to get up and say to this country why this National Government has done something that it did not tell the country about, and why it is not prepared to go to the country to consult\u2014to let people come to a select committee and say what is wrong with what she is proposing. No wonder every National backbencher and the Minister in this Chamber today are too ashamed to speak out to defend what they have done to those who are defenceless, those who are most vulnerable, and those who will be paying a price for something that the National Government never had the guts to tell the country about\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000502\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002270fa4cbd-9380-4916-9f2a-78da059d220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022fcd924a2893049c09d8fb397b9698c17\u0022\u003EThe CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson)\u003C/span\u003E: Order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00226bfe874640fc4ca294402e886c116b3f\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 be agreed to. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EPart 2 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000503\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u0022351815377413419196c4f2a3c971206d\u0022\u003EClauses 1 to 3\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u00224d582b8f96304cca997d746162d924f5\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EClause 1 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022df9b493d52c549f1a2528cf6a0744996\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EClause 2 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022cc87605956924037a85daff81b1c5d60\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EClause 3 agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000504\u0022\u003EBill reported without amendment.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000505\u0022\u003EReport adopted.\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000506\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u00225b9d3470019b422c913af4000447f827\u0022\u003EThird Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022 data-id=\u0022569d4f9dc9864d019fe9566530c596e4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000507\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022569d4f9dc9864d019fe9566530c596e4\u0022\u003EHon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I would like to start by acknowledging the Parliamentary Counsel Office, Treasury, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Health, and other contributing agencies for their role in this work. The Government welcomes the enactment of this bill. It sets in place a responsible and sustainable framework for assessing a person\u2019s assets to determine whether they are eligible for assistance through the residential care subsidy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000508\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003EThis bill amends the Social Security Act 1964 to change the amount of annual increase in the applicable assets thresholds used in determining the amount that residents in aged residential care are required to contribute to the cost of their care. Throughout this debate and throughout the Committee stage we have heard all sorts of rhetoric about what might be happening, but actually current increases of $10,000 each year in the thresholds are going to be replaced with CPI indexation of the thresholds. We have heard that all sorts of other things are going on, so let us get the facts here. The bill sets the thresholds for 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 to $213,297 for Threshold A and $116,806 for Threshold B, respectively. Threshold B is the lower threshold, excluding a person\u2019s home and car, and it also requires those amounts to be CPI adjusted by Order in Council for each later year, beginning on 1 July 2013. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000509\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002263776108-58dc-4cab-baf1-95282c61d0de\u0022\u003EThis bill means that the residential care subsidy will continue to be available into the future, as the demand for residential care for older people rises. It is a fair deal and one that this Government is pleased to support. It is a priority for this Government to enact this bill at this time. Passing this legislation through this Parliament will provide certainty for those people who may require residential care and for the Crown, and will establish a sustainable pathway. I commend this bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022 data-id=\u00220048b2c6f7f24d01b010242587b3a542\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000510\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00220048b2c6f7f24d01b010242587b3a542\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI (Labour\u2014Mana):\u003C/span\u003E Thank you very much for giving me the chance to speak in the third reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. The previous stage\u2014the Committee stage\u2014I think could best be described as unbalanced, because not one member opposite took a call in the Committee stage. The bill is such a priority for this Government, as the Minister for Social Development said in the first reading, but there was not one contribution from the other side of the House. Actually, to be fair, there were two contributions: a point of order from the junior whip, and Maggie Barry actually answered a question for the Minister in the chair. If this Government thinks this bill is a priority, then it might have been good for members opposite to take a few more calls\u2014or a call\u2014in the Committee stage.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000511\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EI feel sorry for the members opposite who did not know that this measure was coming in the Budget. It is going to be a very long plane ride or car drive home, because those members opposite know they are going to have to go home to their local electorates, if they have got one, or to their piece of New Zealand, and explain this to the people in their electorate. Maggie Barry has got quite a few rest homes in her electorate, so she can consider herself to be very, very busy soon, having to explain the measures that are contained in this bill, which will adversely affect quite a number of the older people in her electorate, I would say. I am sure that the families of those concerned on the North Shore will make their opinions known to her, so the phone in the electorate office of Maggie Barry MP will be going off the hook now\u2014off the hook. As she explained to us, she did not know at election time that this was going to happen. This is a new initiative from the Government, so I feel sorry for all the members at the back of the House in the National Party, who will have to go home at the end of this urgency and say: \u201CWhat the hell happened there?\u201D. They will have to go home and explain this rubbish piece of legislation, which was brought sneakily into this House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000512\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis has been sneakily put through this House. It was not mentioned once\u2014you know, I have been saying this ad nauseum today\u2014in the Minister of Finance\u2019s Budget speech. Not once. How were the people of New Zealand notified about this legislation? By one and a half sentences in a throwaway line in Tony Ryall\u2019s health budget press release. Shocking, appalling process\u2014that is the way that the Government announces what Paula Bennett called a priority.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000513\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224286902345844fd8a86967377588c011\u0022\u003EDarien Fenton\u003C/span\u003E: She did 2 minutes during the first reading. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000514\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00225b16d232d0d747699782eaba0d2954ba\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: Sorry, yes\u20142 minutes. I will give her credit for that. The other travesty here in this process is that this is being rushed through under urgency. In the first year of this measure being introduced, 170 elderly Kiwis who are currently in rest home care are going to be affected. That is 170 families out there, and probably more, who are going to be very concerned about what is happening in this House today. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000515\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022897773b04e4a45f6b56076a6a439083b\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: That\u2019s just to start with. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000516\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d1351ae65e43477db96239cbc03a3d34\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: It is just to start, because\u2014if Ms King could advise me about the fourth year\u2014I believe it is 640 individuals who will be affected in the fourth year. So over the next 2 or 3 years even more families will be affected by this. Those families are not going to get the opportunity to take their concerns to this House. They are not going to be able to come and say that they are unhappy, happy, or indifferent, or ask: \u201CHave you thought about this? Have you considered that? How much money is it going to save?\u201D. We can answer a few of those questions now, because the Ministry of Health has quite helpfully given us some numbers in the regulatory impact statement: $4.5 million saved in the first year, and I believe that in the fourth year it gets up to $16.5 million. This is in a measure that earlier someone from the other side of the House, and I think it was Tim Macindoe, said was a measure to ensure the sustainability of residential aged care in New Zealand\u2014to save $46 million. If this Government thinks saving $46 million in\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000517\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e8f8917b01f5413f8bc39341acb7ba4f\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s $16 million by the fourth year. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000518\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223f3b8bc370854d6196e4a0c212ddb2e0\u0022\u003EKRIS FAAFOI\u003C/span\u003E: I say $16 million; $46 million, I think, in total. If this Government thinks saving $46 million is the answer to sorting out residential aged care in New Zealand, it has got some problems.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000519\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EDuring the Committee stage many people on this side of the House did mention the silence of the Minister who was in the chair, the Minister for Social Development. Well, to be fair, one member of the National Party did answer a question, even though she got herself into a bit of grief with the whip. But the silence from the chair just shows you the tactics that the Government has employed to bring this piece of legislation through. It wants to sweep it through this House as fast as possible, so that nobody outside of this House realises what is going on. That could be put in the category, I believe, of dodgy process. Those people outside of this House who are worried about this\u2014and, as Annette King said, Grey Power is watching\u2014wanted to hear from the Minister as to why this is being brought in, what the rationale of it is, how much money it is going to save, and why they were not consulted earlier on. None of those questions were answered at all, apart from the response that we got from Maggie Barry to say that members did not know about this before the election. Well, I am sorry about this, but that is just not good enough, when serious questions are being asked, and especially when this House does not get the opportunity at the select committee to let other people answer questions. So we are here, asking the Minister in the chair questions, and there was not a peep out of the Minister. I think that is a shame, given what, I think, are the large ramifications of this bill to elderly people around the country.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000520\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is a serious issue about how we look after our elderly. It is an issue that, personally, I think needs the heads of this whole Parliament to get round a table and sort out. It needs a broad, cooperative approach to make sure that our loved ones\u2014and I am sure that we all in this House have people whom we hold dear and who are around this age\u2014are looked after properly. If some of those people cannot afford care, we must look at how we provide that for them, and if there are some who can, we must look at how we make sure that they are looked after, as well, in a way that is not overly burdensome to them. But it is an issue that needs a proper debate, a broad debate, about all the issues that are concerned in aged care, not a piece of flimsy, rushed through the House, last-minute legislation that the Government would prefer be swept through this House very, very quickly.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000521\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003EThis is a piece of legislation that unfortunately has gone through this House under urgency. It did not deserve that. This issue is bigger than this. It should not have been swept through under urgency, people should have been able to have their say, and, as I said during my Committee speech about the silence of the Minister in the chair, when we were putting questions to the Minister\u2014I think some of them were reasonable, and some of them might have had a slight political edge to them\u2014the silence was golden. I think that shows the level of respect that this Government through this process with this bill has shown the elderly people of New Zealand.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022 data-id=\u00226ce8140869524400b6144e803b410165\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000522\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226ce8140869524400b6144e803b410165\u0022\u003EHon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health):\u003C/span\u003E I wanted to come down to the House to acknowledge the fine stewardship of the Minister for Social Development throughout the consideration of this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. This bill represents a slowing down in the increase of the asset-testing threshold in New Zealand. Instead of increasing it by $10,000 a year and stopping it in 2026, which is what the existing legislation does, this new legislation\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000523\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022772b6dd0c3144d57897ffd2a597e28f3\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: Because it would have been phased out by then, you silly man. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000524\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002292b4b5bc2ff34079a928d41e346ec441\u0022\u003EHon TONY RYALL\u003C/span\u003E: It does not get phased out if the increase is stopped in 2026. That is not a phase-out. What this legislation does is slow the increase right up into the future. The increases in the asset-testing thresholds are slower, but the thresholds still continue to increase. Money is going to be raised from these increased asset-test thresholds, and the real question the Opposition never asked is what that money is going to contribute to, for helping older New Zealanders. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000525\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022\u003EI will tell you what it is going to contribute to over the next 4 years: rest home subsidies will increase by $47 million\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000526\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002280d914741e334c91a40891a800e5937c\u0022\u003EHon Members\u003C/span\u003E: How much?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000527\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002268af2a144f774d4390ada3c1ec9f21d3\u0022\u003EHon TONY RYALL\u003C/span\u003E: There will be $47 million extra in rest home subsidies. On top of that we will be increasing dementia bed subsidies by $37 million over the next 4 years, and home support services will increase by $40 million or so over the next 4 years. So there will be $47 million extra in rest home subsides, $37 million extra in dementia bed subsidies, and $40 million - plus more in home care services. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000528\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a83ea07a-806c-45ad-95bb-eb2c481cd0e2\u0022\u003EThis Government is making rest home care and home care priorities in investments, and one of the ways that we are able to afford this extra investment for the older New Zealanders of this country is to slow the increase in asset-test thresholds. I agree with Minister Bennett; I think it is moderate, it is sensible, and it recognises the tough economic times our country is in and the demographic pressures. Of course, information has been made available on the Ministry of Health website to assist people who are inquiring, and Grey Power and Age Concern were briefed before the Budget yesterday to advise them of what was happening. I certainly commend this bill to the House. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022 data-id=\u002293edf8b7d5ab4b46b116bcb3a26b160b\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000529\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002293edf8b7d5ab4b46b116bcb3a26b160b\u0022\u003EHon RUTH DYSON (Labour\u2014Port Hills):\u003C/span\u003E I would not be at all surprised if the next speaker from National is Steven Joyce. Clearly, the optics have not been great on this. Clearly, the messaging has not been as succinct as Minister Joyce, the \u201CMinister of Everything\u201D, would wish, so the Hon Tony Ryall was sent down to rescue the Hon Paula Bennett, who did not make a single contribution through the entire Committee stage of this legislation. During the introduction of the bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, Minister Bennett described it as a priority. She said this was a priority. Well, the Hon Tony Ryall has just described to us the loaves and fishes of the asset-testing health budget regime. This is a fantastic policy whereby you can save $4.5 million, taken from the dressing gown pockets of residents of rest home and hospital care - level facilities. Suddenly you get $4.5 million over here, out of their dressing gown pockets\u2014they are already residents; they have entered into that contract, and it is being broken by National\u2014and on the other side of the ledger you can put $47 million into rest home care, you can put $37 million into dementia care, and you can put around $40 million into home support. Wow! That is loaves and fishes in action. Thank you, Minister Ryall, for that amazing lesson in new maths. No wonder this Budget looks so bad for New Zealanders. If people on that side of the House think that any older person is going to fall for that spin, then they are wrong. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000530\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThis has been a disgraceful breach of the respect that we should hold older New Zealanders in, and a disgraceful breach of proper parliamentary process, where urgency should be accorded when it is needed and at no other time. In fact, the arrangements of the House\u2014the rules of the House\u2014have been changed so that we do not have urgency just when the Government wants to do overtime. We are now correctly calling that extended sitting hours. This legislation may well have fallen into that category. It may have been that the Government has got a bit behind in its workload and wanted to get a bit more done, but at no time, ever, could this be justified as needing to go through all stages under urgency without any reference at all to a select committee and therefore to the public. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000531\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThe arrogance demonstrated by the Government towards older New Zealanders is gobsmacking, and I am sure, as my colleague Kris Faafoi mentioned earlier, this will be mentioned regularly and frequently to members of the National Party by their constituents. I know that as word of this gets out over the weekend and over the next little while, many people will be contacting the National Party and asking those members why the Minister for Social Development could not answer a single question during the Committee stage. Why could she not answer the questions of how this bill helps, why it was needed, and why it went through the House under urgency? There is no justification for it, at all. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000532\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EI was also surprised that the Hon Peter Dunne did not take a call at all on this bill; nor did the Hon John Banks. I am not sure whether he has realised that he is actually a member of another party now. He is a member of ACT, and his vote was cast on his behalf by National. And nobody from the M\u0101ori Party took a call, despite their votes being cast in support of this legislation, as well. So for the entire Committee stage we had opposition raised by members of the Green Party, by NZ First, and by Labour, and not a single contribution from the majority vote that will make this legislation our law and freeze the threshold for the asset-testing regime for older people\u2014freeze it for the people who are already in a rest home, who entered that rest home with a clear contractual understanding of how the law was, a contract that has now been broken by National. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000533\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThe Hon Tony Ryall said: \u201CWe\u2019re not changing anything dramatically; we\u2019re just slowing down the increase.\u201D This is a major policy reversal, Mr Ryall, and I know that that Minister understands that very well. No amount of his spin is going to alter the fact that this has penalised older people who are not able to have a say at a select committee\u2014not just older people but older people who are at the most vulnerable stage of their lives, at a level where they are dependent on support being provided to them because they are not able to independently live on their own. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000534\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EWe know, and I am sure everyone in the House is aware, of the issues in the aged-care sector. Everyone knows the issues and the challenges. What we have seen from this Government is a total denial of its leadership responsibility in aged care. What it has done is said: \u201CYes, we know. There are lots of issues in aged care, and we\u2019re going to change the asset-testing regime for older people.\u201D If that is the answer, then the Government has not understood the question. Everyone else throughout the country in this sector understands the issues and the challenges. We should face up to that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000535\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EI recall at the Health Committee when Labour and Green members of the select committee tried and tried and tried to get the select committee to agree to having an inquiry into these issues so that we could, across all the parties in Parliament, look at the issues in the aged-care sector and develop some systematic responses to them\u2014in consultation and in partnership with the different players. They all care about the quality, the affordability, the sustainability of home support, of residential care, of dementia care. But, no, the National members blocked that inquiry, so Labour and the Greens did it themselves, and we came up with a lot of tragic stories about issues facing us in the aged-care sector. Grey Power was a partner in that inquiry as well. Grey Power, I know, and Age Concern New Zealand were told of this change just minutes before it was introduced to the House. They had no opportunity for any genuine debate, and they had no opportunity for consultation. They should be feeling very aggrieved, and I know they will express their views to the appropriate people at the appropriate time. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000536\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003EThis is a big disappointment to me, because in my view it is an opportunity lost. We have every part of the aged-care sector saying that we know there are issues, we know there are challenges, and we agree on the problems. Why could the Minister of Health and the Minister for Senior Citizens not have taken that opportunity and said: \u201CLet us work together and develop solutions that are sustainable.\u201D? Instead, they are penalising a small group of people for a pitiful amount of money that will make no difference to the overall health budget but will penalise just those who have been denied an opportunity to have a say. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022 data-id=\u0022a12641eb60a4416097d8302c46007362\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000537\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a12641eb60a4416097d8302c46007362\u0022\u003EKEVIN HAGUE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E In the second reading debate on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill I made some references to parliamentary debate, and to remarks made by the Prime Minister at the time, Michael Joseph Savage, around the passage of the Social Security Act. I am going to give that quote in full now. He said at the time that the honourable gentlemen \u201Con the Opposition benches want to turn back the clocks. I want to know why people should not have security\u2014why people should not have security in the evening of their days, or when they are invalided. What is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers\u2019 keepers in reality?\u201D. That idea of security has formed the basis of the social contract between the State and the public since the 1930s. That idea of security involves a number of different concepts, of course. It includes the idea of fair treatment\u2014people being treated fairly. It involves effective, high-quality services, and it also involves policy stability. So all of those elements are important, and all of those are called into question by the Government\u2019s behaviour around this bill. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000538\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EAsset testing is a discriminatory regime. As Grey Power has so ably advocated, asset testing is a form of discrimination against older New Zealanders. It has no place in the New Zealand policy landscape. It is also contrary to the direction that we want to pursue in our economy, in that in our economy we are trying to encourage saving, yet asset testing, for aged residential care, encourages people instead to spend, not to save\u2014to dispose of their assets or else to conceal them. That is inappropriate. Asset-testing regimes lead to situations where those who have the connections and the legal nous to be able to evade the test are generally easily able to do so, and those who do not are thereby penalised, leading to capricious effects. That is not what we require in a law. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000539\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EAsset testing for aged residential care also mitigates against being able to pursue our Ageing in Place strategy, where we want to try to retain older people\u2019s ability to live in their own homes. A person who needs aged residential care for a time, but is required, effectively, to lose their family home because of the asset-testing regime, and then regains their independence actually is no longer able to leave the rest home and to return to their family home\u2014a situation that we would expect to occur more and more as time goes by. So asset testing is discriminatory and something to be discouraged on all fronts. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000540\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003ERuth Dyson has just spoken in the House about the repeated attempts that Labour and the Green members made in the last Parliament towards an inquiry into aged residential care, and this Government\u2014or, I guess, the National Government that we had at that time\u2014resisted every one of those. Yet the inquiry that we undertook found that wages were totally inadequate in that sector, that quality of care was totally inadequate in that sector, and that training was totally inadequate in that sector. What we see is a situation where both the asset-testing regime and the type of care that is provided show a disrespect for older New Zealanders. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000541\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EBut, also, people are entitled to policy stability. That is part of security. There are many New Zealanders, older and otherwise, who will have planned their retirement, who will have planned their aged care, on the basis of the policy settings that have been in place. For 10 years those policy settings have been that asset testing is being phased out. That has been the goal of the law. Now, with a stroke of the pen, this Government is changing those policy settings, changing the goal, so that rather than the aim being to eliminate asset testing, the goal of the Government\u2019s policy is now to retain asset testing, to freeze it in place in real terms. In fact, that is a polar switch, and one that older New Zealanders were entitled to at least know about before it occurred\u2014and, we believe, to have a say about. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000542\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EIn fact, I had to struggle to restrain my incredulity at the comment from the Hon Tony Ryall. He appeared to give the impression that Age Concern and Grey Power were in some way consulted about this change before the Budget was read yesterday. My understanding is that Age Concern and Grey Power were told about what would occur, approximately an hour before the Budget. That fails every test of consultation law in New Zealand. If the Government believed that those organisations were entitled to be consulted, then actually there was a whole lot more it needed to do. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000543\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe reason behind this bill is really, in fact, to fill the hole in the Government\u2019s health budget\u2014to fill the hole that a 2 percent increase on last year\u2019s appropriation for health will leave. That 2 percent increase will go no way towards covering the costs of merely treading water in health\u2014merely being able to retain our same capacity to provide services\u2014let alone deal with population growth, an ageing population, changes to KiwiSaver that district health boards will need to somehow accommodate, and the trumpeted $1.5 billion worth of new initiatives. In fact, those will have to be funded entirely from savings or cut programmes within the health sector, and this is one of those. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000544\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe Government needs this bill to fill that hole, to compensate for the magical thinking that lies behind its health budget. That is why we have got this bill\u2014that is why we have got this bill. It needs it for that reason. The next step in the logical chain is that it needs to be able to pass it through into law without public consultation, because it knows that the public are extremely exercised about the topic of asset sales and would wish to actually have their say about that matter. The Government cannot afford to have this bill go before a select committee, because it knows what the public would say, it knows what older New Zealanders would say, and it knows that it would make it a heck of a lot harder to get this bill through. It cannot afford to have it go through select committee, and that is the reason for the urgency. That is the reason for the urgency. The 1 July commencement date for this bill is actually the end of the chain; it is not the beginning of it. This whole process is in order to allow this Government to get this bill through without public scrutiny to fill the hole left by magical thinking in the health budget. It shows a contempt for the processes of this House and a contempt for older New Zealanders. Shame on this Government.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022 data-id=\u0022435c02686ce74b899a4dd4e5f2403a05\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000545\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022435c02686ce74b899a4dd4e5f2403a05\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National\u2014Maungakiekie):\u003C/span\u003E It is my honour to speak on the third reading of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I have been listening intently on this side of the House, and I have heard all the arguments from the Labour Party. And the belief that you can shout and scream and cry loud and be heard is just\u2014having listened to the false arguments that have come from across the House, I just have to straighten out some of the hyperbole. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000546\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EAs the Minister for Social Development has already said, this is about changing the annual increases. It is not taking away the annual increases; it is merely making the annual increases go up in an affordable way. If the Labour Party should have learnt anything in the last 3\u00BD years of being in Opposition, it is the context in which we now operate within this global environment. It is a global environment of recession; it is a global environment of fiscal responsibility. If those members want to live like the Greeks and eat Greek salad, then they can go right ahead and campaign on those promises. But if they want to be fiscally prudent and fiscally responsible, like the National Government, then they can sit there and learn some things. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000547\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EWhat are the facts? What are the facts? Well, the facts are that the threshold levels for aged residential care were increased from $210,000 to $213,000. That is what it is: it has gone up. It has actually increased. That is for singles and for married couples who are both in residential care. It has gone up for a married person whose spouse is not in a rest home; it has gone up to $116,806 from 1 July. But what has happened as well is that the family home and car are not counted as assets while the remaining spouse is not in a rest home. That is contrary to what has been espoused across this Chamber. It is contrary to some of the things that have been said by the Labour Party. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000548\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EI will tell you what is not changing. What is not changing is that it will not affect anyone getting subsidised in rest home care or anyone who applies and is assessed before the 1 July 2012 date.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000549\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228c31fdd28de04ae7a1194468a86693d2\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: Of course it affects them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000550\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002264533e2160514cfd8705f3184f255289\u0022\u003EPeseta SAM LOTU-IIGA\u003C/span\u003E: Mrs King continues to propagate the nonsense that they are affected\u2014that this is retrospective. But I am sorry, Mrs King, I ask you to read the bill\u2014I ask you to read the bill. I will tell you what: I am specially going to visit the rest homes in Maungakiekie, from Onehunga, One Tree Hill, Ellerslie, and right throughout my electorate. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000551\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002219bcf2ff-a193-4361-9072-813a4e36683c\u0022\u003EI will tell you what I am going to do. I am going to talk about the facts of this Budget. There is $47 million in rest home subsidies over 4 years\u2014increased. There is $35 million to dementia bed subsidies\u2014increased. There is $40 million for home care support\u2014going up. That is what they want to hear in our electorates. That is what the people of New Zealand want to hear, and that is what this National Government is providing for the people of New Zealand. I support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022 data-id=\u0022641fc1ff5f314d2d9effc3d54cc50ff1\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000552\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022641fc1ff5f314d2d9effc3d54cc50ff1\u0022\u003ELe\u2019aufa\u2019amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First, while at the same time I am trying to find a good reason to agree with the previous member\u2019s speech. I believe that Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga is rather confused about which bill is being discussed right now; nor is he aware of what is being said. In fact, the previous speaker reminds me of the lyrics of an Irish song that go something like \u201CFor all the languages, we cannot communicate.\u201D\u2014\u201CFor all the languages, we cannot communicate.\u201D There seems to be no clear communication from the Government, nor is it able to say anything that will provide any comfort to any of our senior residents at residential homes. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000553\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EIt is strange to tell that National earthen lot that some of us over on this side of the House can articulate what they cannot\u2014clearly, they cannot. I thought it was very strange to hear the Minister for Social Development say that she sees the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill as a fair bill. For years our citizens, who should be cared for fairly\u2014\u201Cfairly\u201D is the word\u2014in residential care, have been demanded by Government departments to complete forms. If they need long-term residential care in hospitals they need to complete these forms. There is also another demand of them, and it goes like this: \u201CYou may be able to get a residential care subsidy from the Ministry of Health.\u201D Note the word \u201Cmay\u201D; it is only a three-letter word. Why is that? It is because the Ministry of Health determines whether a person may get a residential care subsidy. Our senior citizens may get a residential care subsidy if they are assessed as needing long-term residential care in a hospital. It also depends on how much they and their spouses earn. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000554\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EThese residents have spent many years of their lives serving this country. Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga would not understand that. These residents have spent many years of their lives contributing to, and building the economy of, this country. Somebody should tell that to Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. These residents have spent many years of their lives fighting hard to ensure that people like those members over there on that side of the House have a better future. They have worked really hard to provide for a brighter future and a healthy environment for all New Zealanders, not just for the few\u2014and not just for the few wealthy friends of the National Government. Sadly, the Government has failed to take that into account. In fact, the response it has is always \u201CAye. Aye.\u201D \u201CAye\u201D becomes the only vocabulary of members on that side of the House in their everyday language, leaving common sense outside of Parliament altogether. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000555\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EThe Minister who introduced this bill, Paula Bennett, is obviously confused about what planet she is on, given that her welfare destruction bill says yes to some sort of youth training, and no to sensible New Zealand First policies that create jobs. The bill strikes at the hearts of our elderly citizens by determining that their assets should be used to pay for the cost of their contracted care services. Instead, the Government just responds with \u201CAye\u201D to anything and everything. I am reminded of an old saying:\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000556\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EThe ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000557\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EBut right or left, as strikes the player goes; \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000558\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EAnd [she] that toss\u2019d thee down into the field, \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000559\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003E[She] knows about it all\u2014[she] knows\u2014[she] knows.\u201D\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000560\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EHow naive of this Government to quickly forget about many years of service and positive contribution. This Government needs to wake up and start introducing some better solutions. These welfare reforms will have skilled Kiwis packing their bags for Australia or being reduced to student wages. While we are on the exodus path, we might as well send our elderly off with them! At least in Australia they may have a better hope of holding on to their assets. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000561\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EHas anyone thought of the effects that this new Budget measure will have on low-income families? Alfred Ngaro will forget that\u2014oh yes. Those families will be forced to provide for the care of their parents and grandparents. National members cannot sit there and complain that Pacific people are the highest statistics on the unemployment scale, when the Government is forcing them to stay home to look after their elderly because Pacific people simply cannot afford to have their elderly placed in care. I know this, for sure. Pacific people cannot afford to go to work because they have to stay home and look after their papas and mamas from the Cook Islands, and their tina and their tama from Samoa. I know that those small-minded National members will say: \u201CWell, these people do not have any assets, so they won\u2019t be affected.\u201D Well, this Budget measure is surely going to say to these people: \u201CDon\u2019t bother attaining assets.\u201D That is what this bill is all about. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000562\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EIn 2010, 19,000 depended on the residential subsidy. This rate is likely to drop dramatically. What the Government is saying to the children of New Zealand is: \u201CDon\u2019t bother having savings, don\u2019t bother having assets, and don\u2019t bother with the bright future, because this will mean absolutely nothing when you are older.\u201D That is what this bill is all about. People need not bother having assets that are worth more than $213,000. Have those members seen the prices of houses in Auckland, especially in Manukau? The average price of a house\u2014just in case Alfred Ngaro has forgotten\u2014is $345,000 in South Auckland. As we get closer to central and east Auckland, this price increases to $800,000. I am sure Housing New Zealand Corporation will be grinning with glee at these facts, because there will be an increase in the number of people renting their homes after hearing about the threshold, which will be so low that they cannot even buy a parking slot in the city. National members will come back with the argument that the families of the elderly, or the younger spouses, can live in their houses so that they are not affected by the threshold. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000563\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002293e842da-b06b-4f08-88ce-cb568739e1b1\u0022\u003EThis zero Budget\u2014or zero initiative, we might as well call it\u2014is dependent on volatility. The Government has decided to base the job market on Christchurch. Well, let us face it; we are not even sure whether that is going to happen or whether it is going to bounce back. Now the Government will base how the elderly are going to be cared for on a CPI rate of 2.1 percent. I have constituents, a couple, who are reaching the age of retirement and have saved up in order to buy the State house they have been living in for a number of years. They were informed in April by the Housing New Zealand Corporation that they could actually buy this property. That was last year. This year they were told that the offer has been withdrawn. I suspect that the Housing New Zealand Corporation knew that these people and those in a similar age bracket were best not to buy their houses because of the Budget announcement yesterday. So what are they left with? Well, there are no assets to pass on to future generations just so they can have a subsidy to allow them to stay in a rest home. The reality is that rest homes can come pretty close to eating up a person\u2019s entire wealth. We do not support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022 data-id=\u0022252c247d9eee4a0289210c697d7461a4\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000564\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f4112fc5-c53f-4aa9-bf6d-5a05ce6252cf\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022252c247d9eee4a0289210c697d7461a4\u0022\u003EMr DEPUTY SPEAKER\u003C/span\u003E: I call Tim Macindoe.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000565\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002275a05f96-2474-4c90-a6ea-cf7b5798e03e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b56b1fb042c24851b7a1353d25188a13\u0022\u003EHon Ruth Dyson\u003C/span\u003E: Oh! You could have chosen Annette.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022 data-id=\u002228d509bcb14444f68d44142db0023465\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000566\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002228d509bcb14444f68d44142db0023465\u0022\u003ETIM MACINDOE (National\u2014Hamilton West):\u003C/span\u003E I am very sure the Speaker is glad he did not choose Annette. As the Hon Tony Ryall noted a few minutes ago, this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, merely slows the increase in the asset-testing threshold. Opposition members have worked themselves up into their customary collective frenzy and declared for the umpteenth time the end of the world. But they do not cry foul about the increase in rest home subsidies or in funding for vitally important dementia care\u2014a problem that we know is increasing dramatically. They do not cry foul about the increase in home-care services provisions. These are the things that are at the heart of this measure we are debating this afternoon. Instead, the members opposite conveniently ignore all these worthy outcomes, because they do not want their constituents to know about them.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000567\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003ESo let us put it on the record that that is what we are doing. I am proud to tell my constituents that we are making provision for those important things, because they know that it is a huge challenge. I applaud yet another step that meets the needs of our ageing population, and the many fine folk who work in the aged-care sector, while acknowledging, as all but the occupants of \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D surely do, the very tight fiscal environment in which we are operating.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000568\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003EOn \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D sound policy means squandering all the funds in the good times and leaving nothing for the bad. On \u201CPlanet Labour\u201D it means making big commitments to sound kind and caring, but failing to make any budgetary provision for those commitments. That was the record of Labour\u2019s 9 years in office. It means failing to establish priorities to ensure that our country can avoid heading down the path that so many of the European economies are currently embarked upon, and it means coming into this House to feign mock outrage and pretend that improving our public services and making provision for these important measures will not matter.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000569\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228a1cb04e-8a86-44d1-9004-6e158e220339\u0022\u003EThat is why Labour members are still hopelessly out of touch with public opinion. That is why they are still hopelessly divided even within their own caucus. And that is why they remain totally without hope of returning to this side of the House for many, many years to come.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022 data-id=\u0022ac3e5228943b4838a230fec77e2c2166\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000570\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022ac3e5228943b4838a230fec77e2c2166\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING (Labour\u2014Rongotai):\u003C/span\u003E Sam Lotu-Iiga said that the Opposition has been shouting and screaming to be heard. Well, yes, we have, and I will tell you why: because no one over there is listening. No one over there has had their ears open to anything that has been said by the Opposition side of the House today. I heard Tim Macindoe, and I have got one question for him: did he tell his constituents, his elderly constituents, before the election that he intended, through his Government, to change the asset-testing regime? Did he tell his constituents? Well, I know what the answer is. The answer is a big fat no. He did not tell his constituents.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000571\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI have to say that his Cabinet did not tell him, either. The backbench members did not know that the Government was going to bring this measure in. I feel sorry for the suckers. They did not know that the Government was going to bring in this measure, until they trooped into the caucus room yesterday. They sat down, and Bill English proudly held up his Budget and said: \u201CBy the way, we\u2019re going to introduce a little bill, just a few minor, technical amendments, and we\u2019re going to change the asset-testing regime. You sit on your chuffs in the House and say nothing, because that is what your job is. You\u2019re the suckers for our policy.\u201D That is what happened. I know that is what happened. I have to say that it is pretty blimmin poor for the older people of New Zealand.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000572\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003ETim Macindoe said we all have to make sacrifices. Well, is it not interesting: members opposite are going to take $4.5 million off the poor old people, who spend, on average, 18 months in a rest home, but guess how much is going into VIP limos? Guess how much is going into VIP limos? There is $8.2 million for the big limos. I am going to say they are taking the money off the old people so that they can have their BMWs. That is what it means\u2014take it off the old people so that Government members can pay $8.2 million for their limousines to drive around in.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000573\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThere is one word for this Cabinet\u2014and I am not going to include the backbenchers, because they did not know about this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. There is one word for this Cabinet: arrogant. What an arrogant Cabinet. You know, during the Committee stage of this bill, would those arrogant Ministers stand up and defend this bill? No, they would not. They sat on their behinds in this House and would not say a word. What do they earn their money doing? I am sure that Tau Henare, when he was a Minister, would have been on his feet. He would not be able to resist it. But did we hear from Paula Bennett? Did we hear from Nathan Guy? No, they sat there with their heads down. They could not defend this measure. Why could they not defend it? Because they consulted with nobody, and it was a sneaky, secret little deal. It was a secret deal done in Cabinet that did not even include their backbench colleagues. They said they consulted on it. Tony Ryall: \u201CWe consulted on this bill.\u201D Do you know what? They consulted on this bill at about the same time they told the backbench\u2014yesterday. Is that consultation? Does that constitute consultation? You ring up Age Concern and Grey Power and say: \u201CBy the way, we\u2019re going to change the asset-testing regime in the Budget in half an hour.\u201D Is that consultation? No, it is not. It is arrogance. That is what it is.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000574\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThe Minister for Social Development said, when she did finally speak in the third reading\u2014a well-prepared, 2-minute speech\u2014that this was a responsible framework. She said that the fact is that it is a good deal. It is a good deal for whom? It is certainly not a good deal for older New Zealanders. And she said that it is a priority for this Government. When did it become a priority for this Government to change a regime that has been in place for almost 10 years and that older New Zealanders and people who are moving into the years when they will need rest home care were relying on? They had no idea that something that had been on the books for 10 years was going to be changed at a swipe of a pen, under urgency, and through a very secret, sneaky little deal done in Cabinet. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000575\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022106966ef-8cc3-434a-9dbe-dd76b708c2a1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002256dca59cd5844ae083748133cbc68df3\u0022\u003EAndrew Little\u003C/span\u003E: Shameful\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000576\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a3ebb86050cc4e0ca662e034457e54f0\u0022\u003EHon ANNETTE KING\u003C/span\u003E: Shame! It is shameful. It is very shameful indeed. This measure is not a priority for this Government. It is nothing but meanness. I think those members ought to be ashamed of themselves. They are taking $4.5 million off the most vulnerable.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000577\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThen they told us that they were doing it so that the older people could have certainty. Well, do you know what? They had certainty. They had the certainty of a 10-year-old policy that the National Party did not change in the first 4 years that it was in Government. It never mentioned it, never changed it, never said it would change it. Older people had certainty for 10 years, and then, at the drop of a hat, National changed the policy. It changed it for $4.5 million. It is OK to spend $8.2 million on limos, but you cannot spend $4.5 million on the most vulnerable in our society.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000578\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI have to say it is the beginning of the end for older people in New Zealand under a National Government. I have seen it all before. Bill English in 1998 said that he would not get rid of asset testing, although he had promised in a coalition deal with New Zealand First that he would. He welshed on the deal under National, which refused to get rid of asset testing. In this Budget National has frozen the Rates Rebate Scheme. There is no more money for the Rates Rebate Scheme. That is another kick in the guts for older New Zealanders. And there is no money to promote the Rates Rebate Scheme. Do not tell them there might be a little bit of help for them. The way to reduce expenditure is to never tell them that they are entitled to it. That is the way that this arrogant Government is carrying on.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000579\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EI have to say I liked the analogy from Ruth Dyson. She said Government members were putting their hands in the dressing gown pockets of older New Zealanders and performing the old loaves and fishes act by taking $4.5 million off the old people, then claiming somehow that they were putting so much more money into residential care and home care. Well, for those members over there who obviously know nothing, there is no extra money for those people who are in home care. There is no extra money for those in residential care. The money merely covers the increase in the number of people going into rest homes, and it merely covers the number of people who need home care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000580\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003EThe members over there might like to have the wool pulled over their eyes, but I can tell you something that I know about older New Zealanders: they do not. I would say that Government members, when they sulk home out of this House, are going to face some older people who will say: \u201CYou could have changed it. You could have asked us, though. You could have consulted us. You could have said \u2018Is there another way to do it?\u2019, but, no, you kept it secret.\u201D They will remember that this is an arrogant, sneaky Government that, when there is urgency, will do what it can to undermine the most vulnerable in New Zealand. Well, good luck to you, because I can tell you they will not forget it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022 data-id=\u00225f6f4668c26f4e62b76f25cb4c9522fb\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000581\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00225f6f4668c26f4e62b76f25cb4c9522fb\u0022\u003EDr CAM CALDER (National):\u003C/span\u003E I think it is about time we got a little bit of common sense back into this debate. We have had the rhetoric from the Opposition: from the Labour benches, from the Green benches, and from the land of Nod. We have had rhetoric\u2014rhetoric after rhetoric\u2014debating the need for fiscal restraint and discipline. You would think that nobody had heard of the global financial crisis. You would think that nobody was aware of the need to be disciplined in our spending, to be fiscally prudent guardians of the public purse. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000582\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00228cf0fb6b-0b8f-4327-983d-73e1166c220e\u0022\u003ELet us just look at what we are proposing. As the Hon Tony Ryall pointed out, we are looking at a slowing of the increase in the asset threshold\u2014a slowing of the increase in the asset threshold. From 1 July we will begin to adjust the asset threshold by the Consumers Price Index for rest home care subsidies. This is what we do with superannuation\u2014this is what we do with superannuation. Up until now, under the profligacy of the previous Government, it went up $10,000 a year. We are looking at that; we thought that this is no longer sustainable. We are about protecting the most vulnerable in our community. We are about having a sustainable programme. I commend this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures Amendment Bill, to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022 data-id=\u0022f00f5367394b4036945d3972cd41abc5\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000583\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022f00f5367394b4036945d3972cd41abc5\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: I understand the next call is a split call with the Greens.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022 data-id=\u00227d24b5b1fa284135ab023da27286754c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000584\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00227d24b5b1fa284135ab023da27286754c\u0022\u003EDr DAVID CLARK (Labour\u2014Dunedin North):\u003C/span\u003E I think the time has come to put this debate in some context. It is in the context of a Budget with zero ideas and zero hope, and a Government that is failing. The previous speaker, Dr Cam Calder, tried to paint the context of the global financial crisis as though it had just happened, as though this Government had not had opportunities to address it, as though this Government had not had opportunities to promote pro-growth tax policies, and as though this Government had not had the opportunity to direct money towards research and development. The previous speaker, unfortunately, is defending a status quo Government. If we do not change things, nothing will change. We will continue to buy more from overseas than we export. If we do not look after our exporters, who grow our economy, we will not succeed as a country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000585\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWhat we are debating here in this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, is a threshold test change. It is a threshold test change that normally involves $10,000 a year over 4 years. This is the big idea of the Budget\u2014this is the big idea of the Budget. Sadly, the reason we know it was the big idea was that it was kept secret. It was one line in a press release. The backbenchers opposite knew nothing of it, so it must be the big idea. The Government did not want it to get out. This was the big idea that was going to change the economy around. That is why we are in urgency. That is why we are trying to get this bill through, so that New Zealand will be put on the right track because of a $10,000-a-year threshold test change. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000586\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EIt follows on from picking the pockets of children in the previous legislation. We can see the theme: it is tinkering about the edges of tax law. It is not addressing the fundamental change that we need as a country if we want to grow our exports and make our country a better place to live in. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000587\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EWhat this bill is not doing is the big issue. As my colleague Jacinda Ardern said in a previous stage of the debate, there is no discussion on superannuation. There is no real fruitful discussion on superannuation in the Government\u2019s documents. It does push out KiwiSaver another year, it puts off savings as a country for us all, but it does not discuss the big issue of retirement age. It is really tinkering with a small group of people who are on this threshold. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000588\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThey are real people with real lives and real concerns, and there is no doubt about it that they need their voices heard. This is where this goes really wrong, because this Government is not following the usual process. It is not following the select committee process. It is not letting people have a say. It is not consulting. It is not asking whether we could do this a different way. Instead, it is getting on with it. Instead of following the usual process, this Government is pushing through this legislation because it knows it will be unpopular. It knows that cutting away\u2014I say \u201Ccutting\u201D; there is no other word for it\u2014this threshold means that those who live independently will see their assets eroded away. They will be paying for their own care. They will be losing the subsidy that they are used to. This may be a good way of going about things at the margins, but they are not being allowed to have a say about that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000589\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThese old people are also concerned about intergenerational equity. I have spoken with them. They are concerned about their grandchildren. They are worried about the costs in the health system of looking after older folk. They are worried about the opportunities that may not be there for their grandchildren as a result of an ageing population, and they want to be a part of this debate. But this process does not allow them to do that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000590\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u00225bbd9f26-fdb0-4b85-a836-0fc46e1bba3c\u0022\u003EThat is why we are opposed to this legislation. It has not allowed the conversation to happen that should happen. It is tinkering about the edges. It is not making the changes that we need to make, and then we have Ministers unshamefacedly, seemingly, standing up and trying to spin this as something other than a cut. We have the numbers in the regulatory impact statement that show that in 2012-13, instead of the threshold being $220,000, it will be $213,297. How that is not a cut, I do not know.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022e122e0e6-61c6-4d17-9a79-6ad2ac7d127e\u0022 data-id=\u00228a798c4c4bd54b4b8bd578921867c479\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000591\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e122e0e6-61c6-4d17-9a79-6ad2ac7d127e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00228a798c4c4bd54b4b8bd578921867c479\u0022\u003EEUGENIE SAGE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E There are more than 42,000 people in New Zealand who are in residential care, in 700 different facilities, so the changing of the rules that is happening in this bill, the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, obviously affects quite a number of people, and there would have been a lot of people and their families who would have been interested in contributing to the bill through making submissions. As a new member of this House, I think being at the select committee, hearing the submissions, and hearing the expertise that members of the public contribute is an incredible contribution to the lawmaking process. But having this bill go through under urgency, with no opportunity for people to have their say, means we are making bad law. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000592\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e122e0e6-61c6-4d17-9a79-6ad2ac7d127e\u0022\u003EI think the Government has been deaf to a lot of the concerns that have been raised on this side of the House. There has been a theme of the need for collaboration. In areas as contested as water, we have had a collaborative process through the Land and Water Forum. Here we are dealing with the way people are looked after\u2014our senior citizens, who have contributed taxes for all of their lives\u2014in the twilight of their lives. We need to have a cross-party solution here, a lasting solution, not one that is going to be tossed out with the next Government. That is why Labour and the Greens, working with Grey Power, had an inquiry into aged care. That is why we want to work on something that works well for everyone and that endures. But this bill, sneaked through under urgency with no public process, will not do that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000593\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022e122e0e6-61c6-4d17-9a79-6ad2ac7d127e\u0022\u003EIt has been really puzzling listening to the Government. If you read the regulatory impact statement, that makes it clear what the motive for the bill is, and I quote: \u201CIncreasing the asset threshold \u2026 by the CPI (rather than by $10,000) would reduce the number of residents eligible for the subsidy and thereby reduce the amount of Residential Care Subsidy paid.\u201D The reason for this bill is to cut the number of people who can access that care. It is miserly in comparison with the overall $870 million that is spent by the district health boards on subsidising residential care, so it is tinkering, as my colleague Mr Clark noted. It is tinkering about the edges. Why are we doing this? Why is the Government doing this, except to penalise a few people, and to cause enormous uncertainty, insecurity, and grief amongst older citizens, to make this small saving out of an $870 million Budget? It discriminates against older citizens. It is bad process, because it is being done under urgency. It is not good law, and it discriminates. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022 data-id=\u0022c8b449f385ba4ed2a7e984a81dd365f6\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000594\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c8b449f385ba4ed2a7e984a81dd365f6\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO (National):\u003C/span\u003E I seek leave of the House to add that document, which is Changes to the Residential Care Subsidy asset threshold from the Ministry of Health.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000595\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224e54bfc40fd444eebbaede346f8703a4\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s available on the website.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000596\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022210b02cd0e1a4a258c4de256d39fe1c8\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO\u003C/span\u003E: It is? I am sorry, Mr Speaker.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000597\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c32c97c831344d8e80c472c016ed5680\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Leave is not granted.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022 data-id=\u00226a1cef41ad91400fae5b641273f17c93\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000598\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226a1cef41ad91400fae5b641273f17c93\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO (National):\u003C/span\u003E I also have another document here from the\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000599\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022865fefb92989466fbad2c5c1d2fbaa0e\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Hang on. What are these documents? What is the source of the documents?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000600\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00228ed2b16676e243388587033d75f6ae32\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO\u003C/span\u003E: These documents are all available on the website, but\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000601\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229164bed005ef45149663b45ecf42e462\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: The member knows that we do not table documents that are readily available in the public domain. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022 data-id=\u00223ae8ef9efb6b4b72881654e6d642a1bd\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000602\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00223ae8ef9efb6b4b72881654e6d642a1bd\u0022\u003EALFRED NGARO (National):\u003C/span\u003E I mentioned these documents because we were accused for quite some time throughout this morning of the fact that information that was there was not there\u2014and yet it was there. Enough with that debate; this is about the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000603\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003EWhat this debate has been about has been the care and concern of our elderly people. This is the final word\u2014I have the final word this afternoon\u2014and it comes from Martin Taylor, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the New Zealand Aged Care Association and who supports the Government\u2019s initiative to slow down the yearly asset threshold increase for eligibility for an aged residential care entitlement. This is what the association says: \u201CCurrently the asset threshold is $210,000 and increases to $10,000 each July. But with the policy change announced today, the asset threshold will now be indexed to inflation. \u2018This is a small but significant step in addressing one of the most significant issues facing this and future governments, which is how to fund care for an ageing population,\u2019 the Chief Executive of the NZACA, Martin Taylor, says.\u201D \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000604\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022695678cf-542a-4616-9e0a-86990caec192\u0022\u003EThis again confirms why this bill is a bill that we support. This is a bill that cares, and this is a bill about the concern that we have for elder people. We will go to our constituents, we will go to our elder people, and we will tell them the truth. There will be no more scaremongering. I support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca id=\u0022d6dfad5391cc49359d760ac0f957aaca\u0022 name=\u0022division\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EA party vote was called for on the question, That the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EAyes 64\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand National 59; M\u0101ori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENoes 54\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003ENew Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 11; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp class=\u0022HpsDivision\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsItem\u0022\u003EBill read a third time.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022HpsHansard\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsProceedingHeading\u0022\u003EBills\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000605\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubjectHeading\u0022 id=\u00221180e0a19b8e4cdd8d890e206ff5aa4c\u0022\u003ECustoms and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000606\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsSubproceedingHeading\u0022 id=\u002273bcb130464e4981b42dedbf7fb10f11\u0022\u003EFirst Reading\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022 data-id=\u002243c0b719157e4a7b8fef6166600f9c10\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000607\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002243c0b719157e4a7b8fef6166600f9c10\u0022\u003EHon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time the bill will be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I want to first of all mihi to all of those visionaries who began the journey of smoke-free legislation over two decades ago. The Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act in 1990 was one of the major turning points in New Zealand\u2019s tobacco control history. In the space of more 20 years these people\u2014too many to name\u2014have reshaped our attitude to tobacco, and this bill is but another step on that journey. I want to also acknowledge the dedicated enthusiasm of officials, who continue to impress me with their tireless efforts to support the Government\u2019s agenda to be smoke-free by 2025. T\u0113n\u0101 koutou.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000608\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThis bill is about saving lives and protecting our future generations. In the Budget debate there is always an avalanche of numbers that falls upon the public, but in my mind there is only one number and that is the 5,000 New Zealanders who die each year due to smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke. It is profoundly disturbing that over half of all long-term smokers die of a smoking-related illness, losing an average of 15 years of life. It is not right, and we can, and we must, do something about it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000609\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThis bill reflects the view that smoking is not part of our future. Increasing tobacco excise taxes by 10 percent per year in each of the next 4 years is a key part of our strategy to prevent young people from taking up smoking and encourage existing smokers to quit. We know from New Zealand and international experience that increasing the price of tobacco is the single best thing that we can do to reduce tobacco consumption, and consequently prevent tobacco-related harm. After the four annual increases in tobacco excise promulgated in this bill, it is expected that a typical packet of 20 cigarettes will cost over $20, or $1 per cigarette. This is likely to be a huge psychological price point. I have read all the headlines that tell me that this is a hard-hitting move and it will hurt, but I ask the question: what sort of future are we shaping if we do not try to do everything possible to extend life expectancy, improve health outcomes, and strengthen our families? I would have to ask as to which is the greater hurt when we consider the impact of this addiction on far too many family members\u2014loved ones who have gone far too soon.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000610\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EAt the moment, one in every five people over the age of 15 continues to put their health and their lives at significant risk by smoking. For M\u0101ori, the data is even more distressing. Some 155,000 current smokers are M\u0101ori. That is 45 percent of the M\u0101ori population aged between 15 and 64. I care deeply that almost half our population is living with compromised health and the expectation of a reduced lifespan. I know that together this Parliament can act to change that situation, and I look forward to broad support across the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000611\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EWe know that people are more responsive to price than they are to any other marketing intervention. A tax increase will stimulate smokers to make a quit attempt and successfully become smoke-free. One of the things I am most pleased about as a result of the last term\u2019s changes is that we have seen a large reduction in the number of young people who are taking up smoking. The annual Action on Smoking and Health year 10 student survey included 26,000\u2014or nearly 50 percent\u2014of all students in this year and showed the lowest rate ever recorded of year 10 students who were daily smokers, and the biggest year-on-year drop in daily smoking was from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 11.3 percent last year for M\u0101ori girls, who have the highest smoking rates. That is a great result, and a result that I believe this entire House can be proud of in having voted for the previous tobacco excise increases.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000612\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThe Government\u2019s goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa New Zealand by 2025 has in no uncertain terms signalled that it is serious about eliminating the harms that are caused by smoking. The tobacco industry and wholesalers and retailers of tobacco need to understand this message: selling tobacco is a sunset industry in New Zealand. It is not our future. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000613\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EI was intrigued to read the National Business Review yesterday, with the headline \u201CBudget 2012: higher tobacco tax may encourage black market\u201D. On reading more closely, it was revealed that the robust research basis for the article was none other than the viewpoints of the Imperial Tobacco Group. That is the company that produces brands like Drum, Horizon, and Peter Stuyvesant; it is hardly an objective observer. It is a pity that the National Business Review had not opted for a more balanced opinion by including the advice of people such as Professor Janet Hoek from Otago University. In the Science Media Centre, Professor Hoek responded to these allegations with the following statement: \u201CI have never seen any evidence to support these claims and closer analyses of the industry\u2019s claims have raised serious questions about their validity \u2026\u201D. On the contrary, there is a wealth of research available that gives even more reason for introducing this latest legislation to reduce the long-term burden on the health system and make people\u2019s lives better. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000614\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EJust 2 days ago, research by ASPIRE2025 funded by the Health Research Council and published in the international peer review journal Tobacco Control revealed that smokers strongly support tighter regulation of the tobacco industry, and almost half support an outright ban within a decade. I think that is amazing. These further four 10 percent increases are important and meaningful steps that are a necessary part of the Government\u2019s commitments to achieve the 2025 smoke-free goal.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000615\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003E This bill is but one of a multi-pronged strategy. From 23 July this year a complete ban on the display of tobacco products will apply in everyday retail settings\u2014out of sight, hopefully out of mind. Cabinet has agreed in principle to introduce a plain-packaging regime following public consultation later in the year. We have increased the fines for selling tobacco to minors from $2,000 to $5,000, and I have many other initiatives in progress, including that of stopping smoking in cars. I have stated that my approach is to do whatever it takes to support people to quit. The motivation is clear. I want all New Zealanders to enjoy the highest quality of health, and, of course, to benefit from more money back in their pockets, rather than feeding an addiction that sees their income literally go up in smoke. I am also clear that smokers should not have to do the hard yards on their own. It is about promoting and sustaining supportive environments that encourage us all to be smoke-free.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000616\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EI am really proud that we have been able to establish a fund of $20 million under the umbrella of Pathway to Smoke-Free 2025. This fund gives us an opportunity to initiate programmes that support positive and healthy lifestyles, free from tobacco harm. We are calling this an innovation fund because we are seeking wider solutions to support our goals of becoming a smoke-free Aotearoa.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000617\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThere is one particular feature of this legislation that I want to describe in a little more depth. When the increases in excise on tobacco products occurred in 2010, time-limited legislative amendments were made to exclude tobacco price increases from the annual CPI-based adjustments to the main benefits. This bill proposes to continue to extend the time-limited provisions to ensure that until the end of 2017 the following bills will exclude tobacco product price increases from required CPI indexation: the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, the Education Act 1989, the Income Tax Act, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act, the Social Security Act 1964, and the War Pensions Act 1954. The purpose of this is to ensure that recipients of social assistance are not reimbursed for increases in tobacco excise.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000618\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThis bill takes us another step forward towards being a smoke-free nation by 2025. It is continuing the momentum created by the previous three tobacco excise tax increases. Raising tobacco excise is our most effective lever to influence the price of tobacco products, and I commend this bill to the House.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022 data-id=\u0022417498c29d5446cdb92150f1ef1ef7b2\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000619\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022417498c29d5446cdb92150f1ef1ef7b2\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour\u2014Palmerston North):\u003C/span\u003E I would like to, like the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia did, acknowledge the over two decades now of work on reducing the impact of tobacco and the harm that tobacco causes to our communities. The Minister mentioned the introduction of the Smoke-free Environments Act in 1990, which I believe was introduced by Helen Clark. There have been other members\u2014Tukoroirangi Morgan I know did a lot of work, and Stevie Chadwick, of course. She actually had a pretty rough time when she introduced legislation to reduce the impact of tobacco. I would like to acknowledge Dr Paul Hutchison, who actually had the fortitude to cross the floor at times when his party was not quite seeing things the right way. Dr Hutchison crossed the floor and voted with the Labour Government and other parties to put in place the right legislation to reduce the impact of tobacco. And of course, I would like to acknowledge the Minister. Her work over the last 3 to 4 years has been just stupendous and has really driven this agenda where we now have a target of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. I applaud the Minister for all the measures that she has been able to guide through Parliament\u2014the excise tax increases, the removal of tobacco displays, which we will actually start to see happening in the months ahead, and now this measure, the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, which we on this side of the House are happy to support. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000620\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EWe understand, of course, that increasing tax is a burden on people, but the message is really clear: if you want to relieve yourself of that burden, give up the smokes. It is as simple as that\u2014give up the smokes. It will do more than just put money in your pocket; it will put years on your life and it will put life in your years. It is well\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000621\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022badb0a39-849c-462a-b32f-77fc017c9fc2\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e780c86ea4f14f93837285e1817011b6\u0022\u003EHon Simon Bridges\u003C/span\u003E: And a spring in your step.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000622\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e26c5a3c75914f2384d17479cbf9530c\u0022\u003EIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY\u003C/span\u003E: And a spring in your step, Simon. So we absolutely support this move on this side of the House. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000623\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EWe look forward to more progress in other areas, as well. The Minister mentioned stopping people smoking in cars. We on this side of the House would prefer to focus on stopping people smoking in cars when there are children present in the car. We think that is the more important area to focus on. Children cannot make that decision themselves. They cannot ask an adult to not smoke, and we would like to see smoking prohibited in vehicles where there are children under the age of 18 present. That seems like a good next step. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000624\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EI would also like to congratulate the M\u0101ori Party, and I know the Green Party is on the same page, because, like the Labour Party, their position on tobacco control measures has been absolutely consistent over the years. The same, of course, cannot be said for our friends on the other side of the House. Their conversion to supporting tobacco control measures is entirely down to Tariana Turia. I do not believe\u2014well, I did not believe\u2014that this bill would be coming into the House if Tariana Turia was not a member of the Government, because this just is not the sort of thing that the National Party has ever voted for. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000625\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EBut there is one thing that has maybe just made me think about that. I think that maybe, actually, even in the absence of the M\u0101ori Party, National would have brought this bill to Parliament this year, but for different motivations\u2014completely different motivations. Because it will raise $528 million over the next 4 to 5 years, and we know that this Government is scrounging around everywhere to try to get revenue from wherever it can. We know it has been picking the pockets of the paper boys and paper girls. We know it has been cutting funding for our older people who want to go into rest homes. We know all the different ways that this Government is tinkering around the edges to try to find some revenue, and here is another way. So it disappoints me that a good, robust, evidence-based public health measure that we should actually be celebrating is really being supported by those members over there because they are desperate to make up the hole in their revenue, caused by mismanagement of this economy and unsustainable, unaffordable tax cuts that they brought in during their last term of Government. That is where the support for this bill in the National Party really comes from. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000626\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EDr Hutchison wants me to wind up. I know the optics are not good on this, are they, Dr Hutchison? I know that the member supports this for the right reasons, but his colleagues around him do not feel quite the same way. We know why they are really supporting this bill today. It is because of the failure of this Government to actually grow New Zealand\u2019s economy. We have seen it time and time again, and, in fact, that is the only reason that each of the three pieces of legislation that we have debated under urgency over the last 24 hours have actually come to the House this week\u2014because this Government has failed to grow the economy. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000627\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003EHowever, I do want to just finish by again applauding the Minister on this move. This, from a public health perspective, is absolutely the right direction. It is a next step in the journey that started decades ago, and hopefully a journey that we will be able to complete maybe in 10 or 12 years\u2019 time from now, when we actually see New Zealand becoming smoke-free. Thank you.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022 data-id=\u0022dddc35b3132f47008004871c8c6e6a34\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000628\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022dddc35b3132f47008004871c8c6e6a34\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE (National):\u003C/span\u003E As a smoker, a non-smoker, a smoker, a non-smoker, and, unfortunately, a smoker\u2014but tomorrow will be another non-smoking day\u2014I say that that speech we heard then from Iain Lees-Galloway was from a man who has never ever had to worry about giving up smoking after 25-odd years. It is so easy for that person to come into the House and pontificate about this, that, and the other thing, and smoking in cars, and blah-blah-blah. But the fact of the matter is that what he should have said right from the start is kia ora to our Minister in charge of this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000629\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022490ccdbf-7c22-4e12-98f2-f3aa08f8e676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022a68f596a8d6b45d28fb76f7d8a968582\u0022\u003EIain Lees-Galloway\u003C/span\u003E: I did.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000630\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022f267a6b5f0bd43eca34be4c27b22fc70\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: Oh yeah, he did. He did. But he could not help saying what Labour had done back in 1990. Why do you not just stick to the issue in front of you, which is to say kia ora to the Hon Tariana Turia?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000631\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003EBeing a non-smoker, a smoker, a non-smoker, a smoker, and then, hopefully, a non-smoker again, I say that this bill is a good thing. It will say to our young people that actually you should not be smoking, because of all these reasons, but also because, hey, cigarettes are going to cost 20 bucks a packet. You have got to be a fool\u2014you have to be a fool\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000632\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00222a60a4423f1146218d4fc4e9587a3d2c\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, order!\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000633\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00221ce26e9dbb4649deb7eb9fab09f4ad0e\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: \u2014if you are going to pay 20 bucks for a packet.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000634\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002209a5b71a-ca7e-4e7c-9e09-f9e63f18aa12\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022986ba71301ed43d0850c7cbcd47bf672\u0022\u003EHon Annette King\u003C/span\u003E: Oh, Mr Speaker, you\u2019re not a fool.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000635\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00224b1760b1d62f4e97af4ce1d2ac75be3b\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: You know what I mean. You also have to congratulate the Minister, because if you extrapolate it out, say, 10 years, what we save in health costs is going to be millions and millions and millions of dollars, and not only through preventing the odd heart attack that a member of Parliament may have; respiratory problems, all sorts of problems, come from smoking. I am not a zealot. I will tell you now that if it ever comes to the House, I will not vote to ban smoking in cars or even to ban smoking in cars with children in them. That is a decision for mum and dad or whomever. If you get to that point, it is just one step away from being a dictatorship, and as far as I am concerned I will be voting no.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000636\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003EBut, other than that, there is $20 million in this package that is going towards other assistance packages for people who find it difficult to give up smoking. I can tell you from experience\u2014from several experiences\u2014that even if you have been off the fags for 2 years, it is so easy to pick one up and get off the wagon. I am not ashamed of it. I know that it is a buzzy thing to be a non-smoker these days, like the former speaker, but I have got to tell you that it is not the easiest thing to do.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000637\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f99bcf9e-1ad4-4ed4-9a97-1cccb5b1e11a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022c5075dd4be7d4624bcd8766934a7be97\u0022\u003EDr Jackie Blue\u003C/span\u003E: It\u2019s an addiction.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000638\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002265612f83dcb544b39fafe03e2129ab69\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: Yeah, yeah, and we know all of that. We know all of that. Smokers know all of that. One thing that I ask of this House and every member in it is that they do not vilify the smoker\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000639\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022f99bcf9e-1ad4-4ed4-9a97-1cccb5b1e11a\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022b98d42b8b9ba48c3b1758d6c86c3ab43\u0022\u003EDr Jackie Blue\u003C/span\u003E: We\u2019re not.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000640\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022e85445e29461487d80813e10dce02783\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: But you do. [Interruption] You do not, but she does. It is a very easy thing to do. It is a very easy thing to do.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000641\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002211e99b27318e4c38814c63063d9bb766\u0022\u003EHon Member\u003C/span\u003E: Yell at us. Yell at us. Yell at us.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000642\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002251dfea20-2244-4fc7-bd7d-ebf7a98580e1\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00229a3d5a537f4a4ebd8f05d005c17505d3\u0022\u003EHon TAU HENARE\u003C/span\u003E: I would not waste my breath on yelling at the Labour Party. It is easy to get up and be a zealot and tell people what to do. What we have to do is use some of that money that our Minister has saved for us and got in the Budget to actually prompt people in the right way to give up smoking. Kia ora.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022 data-id=\u0022fae6bccfba934e999c9a39b2cf21d1de\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000643\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022fae6bccfba934e999c9a39b2cf21d1de\u0022\u003EDARIEN FENTON (Labour):\u003C/span\u003E I am happy to take a call on the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and I reiterate Labour\u2019s support for this bill and congratulations to the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia on bringing this to the House. I am a long-given-up smoker, but I was around in the 1990s, and Helen Clark\u2014in 1990, was it not\u2014was not my friend at the time. We all smoked at our workplace, and along came Helen Clark and told us that we were not able to smoke. But I have to tell you that that was the best thing that happened to me. From then on there was a smokers\u2019 room, and then that got banned, so from then we had to go outside, and then that got cold. So eventually I gave up smoking. So I think those sorts of measures do encourage people, and, certainly, if I was having to pay 20 bucks for a packet of fags now, that would be a very, very strong incentive. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000644\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003EJust one other comment: I am interested that we are sending this to select committee. I am very pleased about that. It is nice to be debating a bill that is actually going to select committee in this urgency period. I think there are still some issues around smoking in the workplace. I certainly know there are some at Skycity with its so-called outdoor high rollers area, where people are smoking. Issues have been brought up there with me and I am sure others\u2014\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000645\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002290ea1538-43e8-4257-bd80-df3ccd1e5f27\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u00223ce8cc71dd30437c94831f9b533ead06\u0022\u003EKris Faafoi\u003C/span\u003E: Skycity?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000646\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a40f5af7-f9b0-4b44-9669-9e63be1c3ced\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022d1a595c42216422ba83164af36324726\u0022\u003EDARIEN FENTON\u003C/span\u003E: Skycity\u2014yes, that is right. So I hope that the select committee process will give us the opportunity to have a really good debate about Skycity, but also we can talk about the very, very important issue that those workers, I know, feel very strongly about and actually campaigned to support Stevie Chadwick\u2019s bill in 2005. Thank you, and we support this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022 data-id=\u0022c87afbed62a34875a8f20f199fe46971\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000647\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c87afbed62a34875a8f20f199fe46971\u0022\u003EKEVIN HAGUE (Green):\u003C/span\u003E I want to begin by joining with other members of this House in once again applauding the singular and extraordinary contribution made by the Hon Tariana Turia to this agenda towards a smoke-free Aotearoa. I agree with the comments of Iain Lees-Galloway that it has been her drive and commitment on this issue that have seen this agenda take positive steps forward, and I greatly appreciate that.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000648\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003ENext week\u201431 May\u2014is World Smokefree Day, and it is a good time for us to look back on the progress that we have made on this agenda and the steps still to take. Cigarette smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death in this country, causing somewhere between 4,500 and 5,000 preventable deaths each year. As George Thomson and others have established through their research work, the single most important intervention in the prevention of those deaths is the mechanism of price increase. So the measures in this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill that we are debating today are the single most important thing that we could be doing about the single greatest source of preventable death in this country. They are pretty important.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000649\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThere is considerable evidence of high quality that excise tax increases are very closely linked, in fact, with increased quit attempts and increased successful quit attempts. That, from a public health practitioner\u2019s point of view, is a very encouraging thing, because it says that by making this one intervention it is possible to have a very direct effect on the problem that we are trying to deal with. It is solid, nationwide evidence, but I particularly note the evidence from my home area of the West Coast. In 2010 when the House debated a similar bill around increasing the excise tax on tobacco, I drew attention to the fact that the West Coast has one of the highest rates of cigarette smoking in the country, and the pain I felt as a result of that, and my desperation and determination to do something effective about it. Last week I was very pleased to receive a communication from the West Coast Primary Health Organisation\u2014and some other members may have also\u2014recording some of the progress that that organisation has been making on its smoke-free agenda. I am very pleased to say that it is making some very good progress. In the current year to date it has some 436 smokers currently engaged in cessation attempts, and 24 percent of those attempts are successful. That is an extremely good rate; 24 percent may sound like not very much to some people, but as my colleague the Hon Tau Henare has just pointed out, quitting is a really hard thing to do. The last evidence I saw was that it took, on average, seven quit attempts to be successful. So keep going, brother, and congratulations to the West Coast Primary Health Organisation, because a 24 percent success rate is extraordinarily good.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000650\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EBut the thing that I particularly drew encouragement from was the evidence from the primary health organisation about when quit attempts were being made. It has tracked that over a 2-year period and has noticed a surge in those attempts in the April to June quarter over the last couple of years. It attributes those surges to two factors. It says they are associated with the excise increases that have occurred in those 2 years, and also the quit-smoking campaigns that have occurred in May associated with World Smokefree Day. Again, that is great encouragement for what we are doing here today with this bill.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000651\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThere have been in the last week several opportunities in the House to talk about health promotion. I want to briefly remind the House about what health promotion says. It says that illness is a function of, effectively, marginalisation or disempowerment, and the social and physical environment that surrounds a particular community. It is those socio-environmental factors that drive the fact that illnesses are clustered in particular communities. The West Coast population has the lowest median household income of any population in New Zealand. It is a relatively marginalised population. That is why the smoking rates are higher. That is why the smoking rates on the West Coast are comparable with those amongst M\u0101ori and Pacific Island people\u2014two other population groups that are marginalised in our community. The answer to that problem is to address the marginalisation and also address the environmental factors surrounding those communities. So the price increase is important, but not by itself sufficient. There are many other things that we need to be doing in the area of public policy, social and physical environment, resourcing community-based programmes, assisting people with personal skills, and reorienting our health services.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000652\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EThe Ministry of Health has funded a research programme to assess what it would take to halve smoking rates by the year 2020. I say it is great that such a programme exists, but I want to encourage a redoubling of the effort, because, in fact, halving smoking rates by 2020 is still insufficient. That will not be enough to get us to our goal of rates less than 5 percent by 2025. We still need to do more. The Minister has talked about some of the other things that we are doing, and I take a lot of encouragement from them, but I would also draw on some other things that we could be doing. This House has had, for example, the recommendations from the M\u0101ori Affairs Committee. We are doing some of those things, but there are an awful lot of things on that agenda that the Government is not moving on. That agenda was set by I think the biggest and most important and powerful inquiry into tobacco use in New Zealand\u2014certainly, in recent years. There was a great action programme set out by that select committee, and we should be following it. I want to mention a particular initiative that we could be following, and that is to take more of the excise tax from tobacco products to fund cessation programmes and health promotion programmes around smoke-free environments. That would be another concrete step that this country could easily take towards that goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000653\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002281e8ca24-8b1d-4558-9ef9-c9418df2b3c0\u0022\u003EI want to finally refer to, I guess, a time line prepared by Regional Public Health here in Wellington. It records the achievements in this journey since 1990 and it was prepared in 2010. It said we should increase the tobacco tax by 10 percent each year until 2012, prohibit tobacco product displays, have tighter control of the display of trading names, look at infringement notices for selling to the under-aged, clarify trade rebates and discounts\u2014we are doing that\u2014have plain packaging, reduce the transitional period, amend the health warning, and look at infringement notices. We are moving in that direction. And then we move on to licensing retailers, local authority control over the number and location of outlets, the prohibition of vending machines, embedding the framework convention, annually reducing the amount of imported products, and so on, until we achieve that goal. Thank you. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022 data-id=\u00221239a9f58ea44f47b050f5ca42be8c69\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000654\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00221239a9f58ea44f47b050f5ca42be8c69\u0022\u003ETE URUROA FLAVELL (M\u0101ori Party\u2014Waiariki):\u003C/span\u003E T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora t\u0101tou e te Whare, t\u0101tau e wetewete nei i t\u0113nei pire n\u0101 te H\u014Dnore Tariana T\u016Bria i whakatakoto ki mua i \u014D koutou aroaro. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou e mihi mai ki a ia. Me mihi ki a ia ka tika, n\u0101na t\u0113nei pire i k\u014Dkiri ki mua i te aro o te K\u0101wana N\u0101hinara. N\u0101, kua eke t\u0113nei o ng\u0101 pire ki t\u014Dna taumata i t\u0113nei w\u0101, n\u014D reira, mihi mai ki a ia. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000655\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EI \u0113tahi w\u0101, ka p\u0101taia te p\u0101tai, he aha te take o te noho o t\u0113tahi r\u014Dp\u016B pakupaku p\u0113nei i te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori roto i te Whare P\u0101remata? Anei. Anei te pu\u0101waitanga o te k\u014Drero. Ka taea e ng\u0101 r\u014Dp\u016B pakupaku te k\u014Dkiri ng\u0101 take nui m\u0113n\u0101 kai te noho r\u0101tau hai hoa haere m\u014D te K\u0101wanatanga. N\u0101 reira, kai te mihi ki a ia, kai te mihi ki te painga o te noho i roto i te Whare P\u0101remata. Kai te mihi ki te r\u0101, he r\u0101 whakahirahira m\u014D m\u0101tou o te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori, ka mutu, te tikanga ia m\u014D te motu wh\u0101nui tonu. Koia t\u0113tahi kaupapa kua roa e k\u014Dkirihia ana e te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori, mai i te r\u0101 tuatahi i eke m\u0101tau ki roto i t\u0113nei Whare P\u0101remata. Koia t\u0113tahi kaupapa nui, whakaharahara, an\u0101, koinei te pu\u0101watanga i te r\u0101 nei, \u0101, he r\u0101 an\u014D \u0101p\u014Dp\u014D m\u014D ng\u0101 wetewetenga o roto i ng\u0101 komiti wh\u0101iti \u0113ngari, t\u014Dna mutunga mai, kua \u0101ro mai, me k\u012B, te nuinga o te Whare P\u0101remata ki t\u0113nei o ng\u0101 pire. Ka mihi r\u0101, ka mihi, ka mihi.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000656\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003E[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to us who are here considering this bill, which the Hon Tariana Turia has put before you. I really appreciate your acknowledgments to her. It is apt, indeed, that you praise her, as she is responsible for putting this bill before the National Government. This bill has reached its pinnacle at this point in time. So acknowledge her, indeed. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000657\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EThere are times when the question is posed: why exactly does a minor party like the M\u0101ori Party remain in Parliament? Here it is. Here then is the fruition of the talk. It is possible for minor parties to broker matters of huge significance if they are an associate of the Government. So I applaud her, I applaud the benefits of being in Parliament, and I applaud this day. It is a wonderful and magnificent day for us, the M\u0101ori Party, and generally for the entire nation, eventually. The topic at hand is one that the M\u0101ori Party has been dealing with for a long time, right from the first day we entered this Parliament. It is a huge and enormous one and its fruition is at hand today. Of course, there is another day tomorrow for select committee considerations but, at the end of it all, the majority of members, shall we say, will have taken due diligence to this bill. My acknowledgments to each and all.]\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000658\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EIt is a good day to be a M\u0101ori Party member when all of the things come together, the stars align, and you happen to get a nice, sharp, concise, well-thought-out, common-sense bill that is going to take the country forward. I made up all of those words just by myself. I do not think there is too much to argue about in this bill, the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, as we really focus on looking after the well-being of the people of this land. We know that cigarettes are highly addictive and lethal, and they cannot be made any safer. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000659\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EHe mea mauhere i te ng\u0101kau, i te wairua, i te tinana o te tangata, koinei te mate, p\u0113nei t\u0101 te H\u014Dnore Tau Henare e k\u014Drero nei.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000660\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003E[It is like what the Hon Tau Henare said: the problem is that it grips the heart, spirit, and body of the person who is imprisoned.]\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000661\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EIt is something that obviously grabs you. You can be un-grabbed, as he was un-grabbed, and then it grabs you again. That is one of the unfortunate things about it. This is one of the things that we of the M\u0101ori Party call a social hazard, and it is something that we clearly wanted to address from day one when we arrived in the Parliament of this land. It is an epidemic and, unfortunately, we do not always have control over it.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000662\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EI can say that there have been many approaches and many ways that the Parliament of this land has attempted to deal with this issue, from disease warnings on tobacco packaging through to bans in the workplace. Others have spoken this afternoon about subsidising medicinal nicotine, but it has not had too much of an effect. I for one have been to tangi after tangi after tangi, in particular of women\u2014M\u0101ori women\u2014who have suffered from cancer. There is nothing worse than seeing the children who are left behind because of the effects of cancer on not only that person who has passed away but the families and the children and the partners. As I say, the consequences of this are pretty grim. Lung cancer mortality rates for M\u0101ori are three times that of non-M\u0101ori, and we have much to think about as we take this bill forward. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000663\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EIt is about life and death. We are at a critical point, I think, in our history, where we have never been before, seeing the levels of support\u2014from both sides of the House, and both from politicians and from the public\u2014to take a serious look at tobacco control measures. As I say, I am really proud of the outstanding leadership and the dedication that the Hon Tariana Turia has shown in progressing this bill. It is acknowledged that some of the work was done through the M\u0101ori Affairs Committee as well, and there are members of the House who were on that committee who really did push this issue out into the public arena. In terms of the Hon Tariana Turia, she has been at the front of this for the last couple of years, certainly. Not that I should necessarily talk behind her back, but she is one who does not tolerate inertia too much. She wants some action, and I know that she was pretty disappointed that we could not, unfortunately, send the legislation all the way through the legislative process today. But we get that it has to happen like that. But we must try to seize the moment to meet the vision of having a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000664\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EIt is also about the leadership that each of the MPs in the Parliament of our land has in exercising and voting on this particular issue, supporting raising the tax as a catalyst for change. The great thing that we know about the rise in the tobacco excise tax increases that were introduced in April 2010 and in January 2011, and then again in January 2012, is that putting up that tax not only prevents young people from smoking but also encourages existing smokers to quit. I hope the Hon Tau Henare will follow through on that particular issue as well.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000665\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EIt is particularly pleasing to read through the Action on Smoking and Health year 10 study, and to see that M\u0101ori students had the biggest decline in daily smoking compared with other ethnicities, with a change from 14.1 percent in 2010 to 10.3 percent in 2011. As that points out, it is all about changing attitudes and creating an environment that enables smokers, basically, to quit. Research from the Otago University study of 1,300 smokers reported that almost 70 percent of M\u0101ori who smoke and 74 percent of Pasifika people who smoke actually supported tighter regulation of the tobacco industry. The study also showed that 66 percent of the M\u0101ori smokers and 78 percent of the Pasifika participants thought the Government should do more to tackle the harms of smoking.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000666\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EI have heard all of the arguments that tobacco tax increases can induce financial hardship and result in ill health in families. But I would have to say that, on balance, increasing tobacco tax actually benefits poor families far more, because, as we all know, the harms from smoking are far greater than the harms from tobacco tax will ever be. The ill health and premature loss of life caused by smoking, particularly for M\u0101ori, as I say, is a real disgrace. It is also a perfect opportunity right now to put in place an immediate strategy to eliminate a social hazard that has done so much to hinder economic and human growth in Aotearoa, and, as other members have said, it costs literally millions of dollars in health care.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000667\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EI want to commend, again, the Hon Tariana Turia for looking at this issue in a wider context, as we take on this issue with all of the other initiatives that we have in train\u2014for example, the plain packaging, tobacco not being displayed in the shops from July of this year, the issue about making cars smoke-free, and all the other ideas to advance the tobacco control strategy to be smoke-free, as I said, by 2025. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000668\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EAlthough the tax increases are effective, we know that tobacco tax alone will not do it by itself. We need to support those who are struggling to quit. So with that in mind I am really proud of the Budget that we are currently debating, and of the M\u0101ori Party being able to negotiate through some gains across the board, but, in particular, the $20 million for health promotion initiatives, which are basically about supporting positive and healthy lifestyles and freeing people from cigarette smoking. The initiatives can relate to a wide range of things, and I am hoping they are talking about sport, recreation, creating incentives to quit smoking, healthy homes, and all of those sorts of initiatives. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000669\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EFinally, I recognise that this is a huge challenge. Who would think that in another 15 or 16 years or so we can, hopefully, realise the dream of a smoke-free Aotearoa? If we achieve that, it will be a great day for this country. But it is going to take some leadership, and it is going to take some action. We saw last week the Iwi Leaders Group taking a leadership role at the AFFCO plants around the country. It was able to negotiate through the communication gap between the unions and that firm, and I would hope that the iwi take up another leadership role in respect of this particular kaupapa. I know that Dr Pita Sharples, through Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu, is skiting about Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu\u2019s youth tobacco strategy. It has certainly looked at banning cigarette smoking on marae, in the whare, on waka, at the urup\u0101, at the cemetery, and so on. We hope that that rolls out throughout the country. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000670\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022ec266512-9fe8-47da-883e-48f046ee5059\u0022\u003EFinally, we want to invite all New Zealanders to pick up on the challenge to quit smoking, to support and encourage wh\u0101nau members to give up, and to discourage our younger ones from ever starting. That would be the ultimate. Smoking has robbed us of too many of our treasures. We need to de-normalise smoking, and we need to support our wh\u0101nau to be smoke-free. The M\u0101ori Party supports this bill absolutely.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022 data-id=\u002242c945550a12448ebcabf40746b0f725\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000671\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002242c945550a12448ebcabf40746b0f725\u0022\u003EANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):\u003C/span\u003E Talofa lava, Mr Speaker, in Samoan Language Week and heading towards Samoa\u2019s 50th anniversary of independence in the next week. T\u0113n\u0101 koe, Minister Tariana Turia. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. We read in the bill that this bill will see cumulative 10 percent increases in tax on tobacco, commencing 1 January 2013 and on every 1 January thereafter for the following 4 years, taking a packet of cigarettes from about $14 per packet to over $20 a packet by the year 2016. The bill states that the increase in the price of cigarettes will discourage tobacco consumption, which, in turn, will improve the health of New Zealanders. New Zealand First will not oppose this bill; we will support it. However, we agree that it is in New Zealand\u2019s interest to tackle the harmful effects of smoking, and the cost of cigarettes is only just one tool\u2014a very simple, basic tool\u2014to limit consumption.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000672\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First has some concerns that this may have been just a pay-off by the National Government to the M\u0101ori Party in order to keep its vote and support. This is a common thought throughout New Zealand. Was this just another sop to one of the cling-on parties attached to the National Party\u2014a bit like the charter schools for the ACT Party? We hope we are proven wrong. We hope there are real reasons for this, and that this is not something being put through by the National Government just as another one of its sops to its cling-on parties.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000673\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWe are also concerned that this is being done in the interests of the health of New Zealanders, that it is not being done by a nickel-and-dime, pick-a-pocket Fagin Government looking just to extract more tax and money from the hard-working everyday man, woman, and child\u2014or even people in rest homes\u2014in this country, and that this is being done for genuine reasons and is not just another means of topping up the coffers of the National Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000674\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First, on the other hand, expects that increases in tax on tobacco and cigarettes will see these taxes making a real difference with the effects of smoking in New Zealand. We would expect that the increased funding from the taxes taken from the increase in the excise will go into the following things, which are already taking place, to a certain extent, but which we would expect, as a result, to be beefed up. We expect an increase in the media spend on public awareness campaigns, concentrating, for example, on the media showing the real effects of smoking on unborn babies\u2014real stories, real people, the good and the bad, and getting the real information out there to show the effects on our children. We would expect that such campaigns would dispel the wh\u0101nau myths. Smoking is a killer, but the messages that come down through the M\u0101ori whakapapa contradict that. \u201CI smoked through all my pregnancies, and you lot are all right.\u201D is a common comment.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000675\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EThe truth is cigarettes now contain many more poisons than they ever did before. They are more potent, and New Zealand cigarettes have one of the highest levels of nicotine in the world, which therefore makes them more highly addictive and harder to do without. Tau Henare is testimony to that. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000676\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First would also expect that more funding from these tax increases would allow health professionals to work with specialist populations, such as more specific support for those with mental illness, who may find it extremely difficult to quit without extra assistance. We hope more funding will go into programmes with those with mental problems who face difficulties giving up smoking. Our very able primary health organisations throughout New Zealand are already doing a great job in terms of their smoking cessation programmes. We hope those primary health organisations throughout New Zealand will get more funding to raise awareness of the importance and seriousness of tobacco-related harm. Smoking cessation programmes need to become more integrated and prioritised across contracted funding streams such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Quitting smoking reduces risks across these other health issues, and this must be part of the tax package that goes back into these health programmes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000677\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ECigarette taxation needs to fund research, with resources made available to those who are at the coalface, without there being huge application processes or bureaucracy, and access to researchers who can give their time to help write up case-based realities to share and grow existing smoking cessation services. We need more training and recognition of the smoking cessation workforce, and access for funded quality training of those people providing those programmes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000678\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003EWe also need money from these increased taxes to go into an innovation fund to recognise that there are lots of great suggestions to try, such as quit cafes, for example, which have been tried around the world. In other countries they have been very successful. Let us give them a go. Let us have some quit cafes developed in New Zealand. New Zealand needs to look at innovative ideas and methods to help our population reduce the consumption of tobacco and cigarettes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000679\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022a536d3c2-6293-4216-b0bd-dfec1bd6f40c\u0022\u003ENew Zealand First will not oppose this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill, but we will put the Government on notice. New Zealand First will be monitoring what funding is being provided on the other side of the ledger to help deliver programmes that will make a real difference to smoking consumption in this country. We will expect to see funding and delivery of smoking cessation programmes to go up quite a few notches\u2014not just lip service but proper funding and delivery of good programmes. These cigarette tax increases must not be just another way for this penny-pinching Fagin Government to pick the pockets of good everyday New Zealanders in order to balance the books of an ever-failing Government. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022 data-id=\u0022aa37b7399ba44be0a9bbf09310905155\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000680\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022aa37b7399ba44be0a9bbf09310905155\u0022\u003EDr PAUL HUTCHISON (National\u2014Hunua):\u003C/span\u003E Talofa, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to speak on this Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. It is hugely encouraging to think that every member in this Parliament supports it. I think that it is well realised that increasing the excise does indeed diminish smoking. The issue is in the order of 15 premature deaths per day and 5,000 premature deaths per year. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000681\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003ELast night TV3 dragged out a fairly elderly man with a deeply nicotine-stained finger and crinkly skin, and he claimed that his doctor 60 years ago had encouraged him to start smoking to ease his anxiety. The interesting thing is that that may well have been so, because at that stage of events members of the armed services right throughout the world were literally encouraged to smoke. But it was in the late 1950s that Sir Richard Doll, epidemiologist, demonstrated unequivocally the harm associated with smoking. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000682\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022cfdabe42-521a-4dca-afab-3e781731a130\u0022\u003EIt has been since then that groups of professionals, NGOs, and many others have worked in this long journey towards achieving a smoke-free New Zealand. Might I acknowledge all those groups: Action on Smoking and Health, and the Labour Party in the 1990s, which worked so hard to progress the legislation. But, more recently, I acknowledge people like Tariana Turia, who has worked extremely hard and led so extremely hard, and people like my colleague the Hon Tau Henare and the M\u0101ori Affairs Committee. I acknowledge people like Hone Harawira, and Tukoroirangi Morgan from New Zealand First, but even more recently the glorious National Government and the Hon Tony Ryall, who have, indeed, supported this tobacco excise tax and made it possible. It is indeed very, very satisfying to be able to support this first reading of this bill in the House. Fa\u2018afetai tele lava.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022 data-id=\u002249c6dd81753244ca9521db3af3802346\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000683\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u002249c6dd81753244ca9521db3af3802346\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Are there any further speakers?\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000684\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u0022dccc7acf26304435975c2a3dabe9ff3f\u0022\u003EGareth Hughes\u003C/span\u003E: Mr Speaker\u2014 \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000685\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsBy\u0022 id=\u002225821841b7134d5195efc9a703d09e76\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Well, you are standing. I call Gareth Hughes.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022 data-id=\u0022a8e14f366dec4d6e8939c6f3321cbc4c\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000686\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022a8e14f366dec4d6e8939c6f3321cbc4c\u0022\u003EGARETH HUGHES (Green):\u003C/span\u003E Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I am going to take a very brief call. The Green Party supports a smoke-free nation. We think that increasing the price of tobacco is an important market signal. That is why we are voting for the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products\u2014Budget Measures) Amendment Bill tonight. Kia ora.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000687\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003EBill read a first time. \u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000688\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u002255bb390e-f6c3-498c-bbf6-ea1a8fc993c7\u0022\u003EBill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022 data-id=\u00227fb31e887f1945329418c6fda12a6da8\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000689\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c83012b4-3939-4753-80fc-1956a3e2bd1e\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00227fb31e887f1945329418c6fda12a6da8\u0022\u003EMICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Senior Whip\u2014National):\u003C/span\u003E I seek leave for the Minister to move an earlier report-back date, under Standing Order 286(1).\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022 data-id=\u00226132bc9d29b34ebc97bd897511f389d5\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000690\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022893adc11-ce4e-419c-a079-08f04b3d75f5\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u00226132bc9d29b34ebc97bd897511f389d5\u0022\u003EThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch)\u003C/span\u003E: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\u003Ca name=\u0022member\u0022 data-type=\u0022article\u0022 data-memberid=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022 data-id=\u0022c0a99fd300d142088e8b61b9492642ef\u0022\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000691\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsByToc\u0022 id=\u0022c0a99fd300d142088e8b61b9492642ef\u0022\u003EHon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health):\u003C/span\u003E I move, That the Finance and Expenditure Committee report to the House on or before 26 September 2012.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000692\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EMotion agreed to.\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp id=\u0022id20120524217463197d6e4ea8bd103bac8b24d3de000693\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan class=\u0022HpsNormal\u0022 id=\u0022c2dfe169-d946-4f87-8d43-0bcdb7d8bebc\u0022\u003EThe House adjourned at 5.06 p.m. (Friday)\u003C/span\u003E\u003C/p\u003E\n    \u003C/div\u003E\n  \u003C/body\u003E\n\u003C/html\u003E"