King Colin: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
King Colin: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16329] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is certainly a privilege to speak to the title of the Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill 2008. It is worth mentioning at the outset of this little presentation that when National becomes the Government this bill will be merely the first instalment of what will turn into a very ambitious future. When we stop and look at the Labour Government in relation to the long period of time when it said that tax cuts were impossible to deliver we see that there will be tax cuts for New Zealanders with just 2 weeks to go before the election in mid-October. Unfortunately when we hear the arguments that are rolled out around what is doable by this Labour Government we find that the public are certainly saying that the Government has been crying wolf for far too long. It has been crying about what is doable and what good management is and the public has totally switched off. Labour has cried wolf far too much; the public is telling the Government that it has missed too many opportunities. 
It was quite interesting to go to the XTRA website this morning and see what the public is saying. Eighty percent of respondents to the news poll rated the Government’s performance as inadequate. When 80 percent of the country is calling the performance of the Labour Government inadequate we know that even though tax cuts are on the way they too will be inadequate. When we look at the tax cuts that we are facing we can start to see why this country needs an ambitious leader like John Key and a National Government. We have got ourselves into a terrible spot under this Labour Government. The cake has been getting progressively smaller so the opportunities and the pieces that the cake is divided into have become so small they are not worth measuring. When we look at the tax take for people earning $14000 it is great to see that 2 weeks out from the election they will be paying only $1750-odd in tax. But a person earning from $40000 to $70000 will be paying $23000 worth of tax. We do not have to be rocket scientists to realise that if we can grow this nation’s economy we will be able to have a lot better time than what the present Labour Government considers to be the best time in 30 years economically. It is OK for former Minister David Benson-Pope to shake his head but it is a shame that we have missed out on the opportunity. 
We can measure the opportunities by the number of people who are leaving the country. Twenty-five percent of our tertiary-educated people have cashed up and left this country. When we compare that figure with Australia’s we find that only 2.5 percent of Australia’s people are outside that country. “Too little too late”—that should be the title of this bill. The tax cuts amount to only the cost of a block of cheese which is a damned insult to all working New Zealanders. We should not miss the point that there has been a chilling effect towards the Labour Government because under Dr Cullen we have missed the greatest opportunities in a generation. Wastage over 8 years has meant that at the end of it all we will have only a block of cheese before this election and it would have been 18 months before Labour intended to give any more to honest hard-working New Zealanders. 
So we are talking about tax cuts. We are very pleased about them but I would hope that those listening to this debate will understand that under a National Government those tax cuts would be only an instalment. If we want our children and our younger generations to go forward we have to have the ambitious leadership of a John Key National-led Government. All hard-working New Zealanders are sick and tired of Labour members crying wolf and saying that the cupboard is bare and that there is no better way for people to manage their money. I tell the Labour Government that the honest truth is that the general public know more about how to spend their money than it does. Those Labour members have failed New Zealand many many times. They have driven our best and our finest overseas to seek opportunities. They have wasted money in so many areas that the cake has become so small it is impossible to divide it up. Thank you. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Report adopted.