Flavell Te Ururoa: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9488] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou. The Maori Party prides itself on following due process. Indeed our very establishment as a party is based on our respect for Maori being able to have access to due process before the law. So when we came to such a significant proposal to transform the economy to increase savings and to amend the system of taxation we felt duly obliged to undertake at least a limited process of consultation given that the pressure of urgency had removed the process of select committee consideration from the public. My co-leader TarianaTuria raised the point in the House this morning that if 50 percent of New Zealanders will benefit from KiwiSaver or a complying superannuation fund then that inevitably means that 50 percent will not. So I wanted to ponder a bit more about this 50 percent. 
The Maori Party supported the KiwiSaver scheme when that bill had its third reading in Parliament last year. But as the detail has come to hand in Budget 2007 we have been increasingly alarmed about the downstream effects of a scheme that is clearly not accessible to all namely beneficiaries and to those on low incomes. We have a $2 billion cash surplus yet the great numbers of New Zealanders who earn less than $500 a week will not be the lucky Kiwis benefiting from a $20 top-up. Their precious funds will be spent on clothes on groceries school uniforms travel the power bill and maybe if they are lucky the phone.  
So I travelled far and wide; well in fact I flicked through the local newspapers and media releases to hear what people thought. The  
New Zealand Herald  
consulted Rob who said: “Low-income earners will certainly be able to afford the four percent contribution. All they need to do is go and get another credit card and max it out at some ridiculous interest rate in order to pay their daily expenses”.  
My consultation process was not restricted just to Wellington. Here was an opinion from Auckland: “Most of these one parent families are living on less a week than the amount of financial assistance others get on top of their wages. On a benefit long term with no light at the end of the tunnel. 4 per cent of 200 is 8. $8 a week—not quite the phone bill money. Many cannot even afford the phone to ring an ambulance or other emergency service let alone for social contact. Think on that 
. 
” As I thought on that I did think about the recent economic survey of New Zealand undertaken by the OECD that identified the persistent gap in living standards compared with the rest of the OECD—an issue that another submitter David also raised. 
David Bennett 
: Hey! 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: No not David Bennett. It was another David. He said: “The fact of the matter is our economy is well behind most countries. In fact it’s safe to say we're not even on the same page. It’s plainly obvious that our economy is going downhill.”  
Of course it is not just individuals who are hurting from a Budget that continues to support a world in which the gaps are growing a world in which the poor suffer more. Representative of the views of other community groups were the comments from the Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations. Its chief executive Tina Reid commented that there are many low-paid and part-time staff who will find it very difficult to contribute to the KiwiSaver scheme. In her words she said and I quote: “If the Government is serious about supporting the sector for the long term it will have to address issues broader than today’s tax break—such as including rates of pay in a comprehensive way as part of the funding framework for the sector.” 
 Earlier this afternoon I listened to Mr Dunne promoting the fact that everyone thinks we should be providing for retirement and that everyone agrees with superannuation and planning ahead. So it was really interesting to read the comments of Michael Littlewood the co-director of the retirement policy and research centre of the University of Auckland. If anyone would know about the needs and the nature of retirement I think it would be him. I ask members to listen to what he said: “Where is the evidence that we need KiwiSaver? As someone with a long-time interest in this topic I know the evidence doesn’t exist. The 2007 Budget has just made things stunningly worse with further complex government-run interventions in the savings behaviour of New Zealanders.” 
What interests me even further is that research from the Ministry of Social Development has reported that today’s retirees have the lowest levels of hardship of any major group. Indeed only 8 percent show any degree of hardship at all. Yet the same ministry in other research—the  
Social Report 2006 
 and the living standards report—gives another side of the story about where our investment should be best spent. 
As we have said again and again the people who suffer the greatest poverty in New Zealand are children with 38 percent in hardship categories and an ever-escalating increase in severe hardship. These are the children whom people talked about this morning in a meeting hosted by the Child Poverty Action Group to share their bitter disappointment at the lack of vision in this Budget. These are the children who will not benefit from any investment in their future from this Budget—a Budget that plugs a few holes and throws a few meagre lollies out but has little else to go on. People at that breakfast talked about how this Budget could have been an ideal opportunity to produce something in a non-election year that could help the youth—a bold and courageous stand that stood up for the rights of children. 
It makes no sense to make the children suffer any further by subsidising savings schemes without first increasing the very level of a living income a meaningful wage and a standard of life. Why should there be hunger neglect Third World diseases and poverty when we have more than ample knowledge and resources to do something about it? 
Often in this complex we can see Parliament as a microcosm of the very society we live in. In winding up my in-depth analytical robust consultation on this bill I say that this morning I received a letter from a current employee within this complex. I will take a moment to read what she had to say: “I feel very let down by this Budget. I have been unemployed for some years now with an on-call job paying just over $14 an hour. As the unemployment pays $178 a week and we are allowed to earn $80 over and above that we pay seventy cents in every dollar earned from then on. I was looking forward to being able to join up with the Kiwi retirement fund and at least get a few dollars extra to help out when I turned 65. I feel that this Budget has done nothing to offer people like myself that works for some kind of sanctity and pays seventy cents in every dollar after the $80 earned.” 
We must look around this parliamentary complex outside the walls of this debating chamber to the people who clean the floors the people who open the doors and the people who keep us safe and secure warm well fed and able to do our jobs as MPs. What is their experience of the promise anticipated in Budget 2007? We talk a lot in this House about an inclusive society. It is indeed time that we faced up to the processes of alienation that we have created and supported through our behaviour with a Budget such as this—a Budget that could have been a little bit more inclusive. This Budget will undoubtedly benefit some people—and we will not stand in their way—but it will continue to alienate others and will fail to help the poor. As one of our own workers in Parliament told us “I feel very let down by this Budget. ”