Waititi Rawiri; Pugh MaureenGOODS AND SERVICES TAX (REMOVING GST FROM FOOD) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingRAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori): I move That the Goods and Services Tax (Removing GST from Food) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider this bill. Tēnā tātou. Well I feel absolutely privileged to see all of these ex-MPs—and even Sir Geoffrey Palmer is here to hear the first reading of this bill—because at one point they would have all been passionate about ensuring that we start to close the gap between the rich and the poor. So I rise to introduce my member's bill the Goods and Services Tax (Removing GST from Food) Amendment Bill to the House today. Just before I enter into the speech I want to acknowledge all the whānau that supported and signed our petition. Near-on 20000 people signed this petition to take GST off kai.Look Aotearoa's experiencing a cost of living crisis. This bill looks to make immediate changes to allow our whānau the dignity to put kai on the table to feed their whānau and their babies. Therefore a vote against this bill is a vote against eliminating poverty.I wish that they treated this bill the same as they treated the last bill that's just gone through the House the Corrections (Victim Protection) Amendment Bill where it was unanimous—where it was unanimous that we were all agreeing on eliminating poverty in this House not just addressing it. Because I hear a lot of the parties in this House—they want to address the poverty but they don't want to eliminate it. GST is a regressive tax that disproportionately impacts lower-income whānau who spend their entire income to survive. If I'm making $10 an hour and you're making $200 an hour I've got to pay the same tax on that goods and services from the supermarket. If I send my five-year-old tamaiti or child into the supermarket they've got to pay tax on whatever they buy. This is how regressive tax disproportionately impacts lower-income whānau who spend their entire income to survive. The removal of GST from food would recognise cost of living pressures and the reality that food products are a basic necessity of life that people should be able to access without taxation. Kai is a human right. We have a broken tax system which has fuelled extreme wealth inequities here in Aotearoa and it's only getting worse. The richest 2 percent control 50 percent of this country's wealth. Ordinary whānau are subsidising the lavish lifestyle of the rich. Ordinary whānau pay 20.2 percent on tax; the wealthy pay 9.4 percent on tax. Even today Ipsos the third-largest market-research company in the world reported the primary concern for New Zealanders remains to be inflation—cost of living—with 59 percent of New Zealanders identifying it as a key issue. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away but whānau can't afford apples and can't afford to go to the doctor all whilst this Government has scrapped Te Aka Whai Ora how do we look after the wellness of our people? If this House is so concerned with bread and butter issues but whānau cannot afford bread and butter then what does that say about the morality of this House? It's absolute hypocrisy and it's disgraceful. Tangata whenua have never been afforded the privilege of experiencing a cost of living crisis because they are still bearing the brunt of the cost of poverty. Not only that but you've left your own people behind as well where many tangata Tiriti are also experiencing the same hardship. The supermarket duopoly—they made $400 million in the year. We need to break the duopoly. This is an and/and. Others will make speeches in this House saying GST has too much impact on the administration—has too much impact on administration. Others will sympathise with this bill but will not go as far as supporting this bill to eliminate poverty from this country. Between June 2019 and the March 2023 quarter household living costs for all households had risen by 17.7 percent and for Māori households by 18.4 percent. In fact in the coalition Government's 100-day plan to rebuild the economy and to erase the cost of living they do not have a single item of urgency addressing poverty for whānau who are facing hardship. Instead the Government introduced legislation to narrow the Reserve Bank's mandate to price stability repealed the fair pay agreement legislation cut benefit increases introduced legislation just to disestablish the Māori Health Authority e kī rā! [really!] They've repealed amendments to the Smoke Free Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990 and so many more regressive harmful racist legislation aimed at further disenfranchisement for whānau. Because we know what is actually urgent and that is that whānau can't afford to buy kai. Today one in five tamariki Māori are living in poverty. This means their whānau can't afford a safe home essentials like regular healthy food doctors visits or to pay their power bills. Food prices have gone up 12 percent as of 2023 the biggest annual increase since 1989—and some of the ex-MPs that are up the back there would remember this. In 2014 the Ministry of Social Development provided quarterly 92167 food hardship assistance grants. In 2023 that number increased to 336270—it increased by 265 percent. In the 2020 to 2022 time period the New Zealand Food Network reported a 165 percent increase in the demand for food support following COVID. Those are extraordinary numbers. Those are extraordinary numbers. This bill will automatically make a make a big difference to those whānau who are struggling right now. But it's time for us to put politics aside and to actually address poverty and the hardship that many of our people are suffering right now. This is not an and/or; this is an and/and. Some of you will come up with other initiatives that you say are better. Our people cannot wait. They are starving right now. They are starving today. But they cannot wait for you to come up with other alternatives. This must be an and/and. Yes: taking GST off kai. Yes: breaking the duopoly for our whānau in those supermarkets—$400 million in the year made taken overseas. Where's the company tax on those particular corporate companies that have taken our money overseas? That money should be used for the greater good of Aotearoa. And so this is an and/and. Yes: doubling baseline benefits—absolutely an and/and; it should not be an and/or. We've got to have a collective approach to this. We've got to prioritise poverty. We should not walk into a supermarket and see whānau walking down those aisles having to put food back because they can't afford it. This is not about food discrimination where you're saying Only fruit and veg." E kī rā! [Really!]So our whānau can go into a supermarket and you're going to say "You can go down this aisle because we're taking GST off it but you can't go down that aisle. Only the rich go down that aisle. We're going to discriminate against you from going down that aisle." Everybody should have the dignity and the mana to be able to walk down those aisles and shop for whatever they want to without being taxed. Kai is a necessity—it is a human right. You shouldn't be taxed for kai. We need to take GST of kai right now.I'll tell you what people have tried to push Te Pāti Māori on to the left on to the right—we are staying up the guts. We are in the middle and we want to know who else is committed to running the ball up the guts. Pop me the ball! Who's going to run the ball up the guts? Who's going to commit to eliminating poverty? Who is going to support our people who are struggling out there? All eyes are on you. All eyes are on you. I know this House; I know where they're voting—not you Madam Speaker. All eyes are on us. All eyes are on us.So I look forward to the debate. I look forward to seeing where everybody else votes because Aotearoa is looking. The 20000 people that supported our petition and the 70000 people that supported another petition last year where they agreed that GST should be taken off kai. All eyes are on us e hika mā! Who is here to eliminate poverty or who is here to play politics? This is about an Aotearoa hou an Aotearoa hou where we will welcome you on to that marae. We will feed you we will house you we will care for you we will love you. This is the bill. Kia ora tātou. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to."