Brownlee Gerry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Brownlee Gerry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13474] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 How would one feel the morning after one’s great Budget—heralded throughout the country for days as the great saviour of the Labour Government—after reading the  
New Zealand Herald  
headline: “One for the kids (and for their parents’ votes)”. It then goes on to state: “Michael Cullen fulfils his role in life by splashing out to give poor families $100 a week more … eventually”. This is legislation that shows no aspiration for this country’s future—none at all. It is a simple redistribution. How typical of a Government hell-bent on the sorts of socialist policies Labour has. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Right on! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Every small-business operator and every person on a low wage in this country should be terrified on hearing Michael Cullen say that because what they now know is that as long as there is a Labour Government those who are low paid will get in their pocket only the money the Government says they can have. I think that is quite unacceptable. 
I ask the Minister of Finance why we are here today. Clearly the first part of his package is already appropriated and we do not need the $600 million - odd in this giveaway until next April or well beyond that point. But the Minister has decided that Government members will come into the Chamber belt this bill through under urgency and then try to convince the public of New Zealand that this Government has done something amazing and immediate. 
There is nothing amazing or immediate about this bill. I ask the Minister whether he can confirm that the reason this bill is not going to a select committee is that proper scrutiny of it would see it torn to bits as that would be the best way to deliver better incomes for low-paid New Zealanders. It would be torn to bits because this bill is all about condemning low-paid workers—for the benefit of the Government—and making them beneficiaries rather than workers. 
 This Budget will go down historically as being the Budget that started to pave the road from work to welfare. 
Darren Hughes 
: Nonsense! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The soon-to-be-retired member from Kapiti over the other side is saying “Nonsense!”. He should go and ask low-paid workers in his electorate whether they want to have a Government handout or whether they want to keep more of the money they earn—and more important whether they want to earn more money. 
This Budget was as has been pointed out very well by the leader of the ACT party a Budget in which we could have had enormous economic stimulation to the point where New Zealanders’ salaries might have started to move in a much quicker fashion towards those of our near neighbour Australia. But no Dr Cullen in a bit of panic and knowing that the nation across the border has got sick of the Government telling it what to do all the time—which it has started to indicate in the polls—decided that he would put a few markers out in the sand to see how keen it is to run and pick them up. Is it not an irony that when the problem is that the people are sick of being told what to do when to do it and how to do it the Government comes in and says to a big chunk of those people: “This is what you can have this is when you can have it and this is all you’re going to get.” That will just exacerbate the situation that the Labour Party finds itself in and this great centrepiece of the Budget the so-called Future Directions package will not do it one bit of good in the eyes of this country’s voting population. 
How can it proclaim that the future direction for low-paid workers and for struggling families is simply a hope that the Government might on a more regular basis allow them to keep more of the money they already earn? I heard Dr Cullen this morning saying that families cannot be advantaged to the same extent by reducing tax rates. I think that is an utter nonsense.