Little Andrew: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3791. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):This bill is the most symbolic of all the Budget legislation going through the House. Apart from one other it is the most symbolic of the measures in the Budget. After 7 years in office the National Party has discovered poverty in New Zealand. After 7 years it has discovered that there are people who have been struggling and doing it really hard. The Government has helped and has given them $25 a week but it has taken everything else away from those hard-working hard struggling Kiwis—and this is just one of them. This is the most symbolic.When it was first started under the last progressive Labour Government—the last Labour Government—the purpose of KiwiSaver was to help savings because everybody identified that New Zealand had a major savings problem. People were struggling to put money aside and they needed a scheme in which they could save so that they could live in just a little extra comfort in their retirement. But ever since this Government has been in power it has hated KiwiSaver. Actually it hated KiwiSaver at birth and it has hated KiwiSaver ever since. Every opportunity National gets to hack away at it to cut it to undermine it to destroy it it takes that opportunity. The Government did this when it cut the member tax credits and undermined that contribution. That helped hard-working Kiwis! And now it is having another go—now it is having another go. It is taking away the kick-start. It is taking away the kick-start because this is a National Party and a National Government that hates KiwiSaver. It cannot leave it alone. It cannot keep its hands off it—a bit like the Prime Minister and ponytails. It cannot keep its hands off it.So now the Government has taken the kick-start—the very thing that helps many people. For many workers I know the one thing that got them into the scheme when the scheme first came in was that kick-start—the thousand bucks. They thought: “I know I’m going to have a little bit of a struggle to get into this in the next few years until my pay increases but because I’m part of a good union and I know I’m going to get good pay increases I’ll make the contributions and I know I’ll get the $1000 kick-start and that’ll get me into the scheme.” That is why 2.5 million Kiwis are in the scheme—that is why 2.5 million Kiwis have made that decision. They knew that they could get that help and they were getting the member tax credits as well until this mob cut them and made that harder. They all got the kick-start—the $1000 payment. Those who were thinking about their kids and their kids’ future thought: “Yep we’ll make sure they get in and get a good savings habit started early.” So the mums and dads signed their kids up too and they got the kick-start as well. Well all that is going.It may have been lost on the National Party and its great planners—oh whoops it does not have any because it does not have a plan. It has never had a plan for the good of New Zealand. But let us do what economists do; let us make an assumption that the National Party has somebody who does planning. When National planned this it may have forgotten that actually kids are going to carry on being born in New Zealand. New Zealand parents will continue to have children. I think that we can safely make that assumption. So as more children are born as more children come into New Zealand and as they enter the workforce they might want to start their KiwiSaver account. They might need a bit of help and a $1000 kick-start would be that help. Well it would have been that help but National has destroyed it because again it hates KiwiSaver. It is bad enough that the Government is running down New Zealand superannuation. Oh yes 7 years in office and not a single effort has been made to make sure that the future of New Zealand and New Zealand retirees is safe and secure. Government members just live in splendid ignorance of the biggest issue facing the country. They just bury their heads in the sand. They do not want to touch it. It is bad enough for a country that is desperately trying to grow its own capital base and that is desperately trying to create the foundation for future wealth through things like KiwiSaver that this party in Government just continues to run it down.Government members sit there shamefaced—the only respectable look they have shown in the whole Budget debate. They sit there shamefaced because they know the damage that they are bringing on this country. They know the damage they are doing. It is just like the rest of the Budget actually because they do not have a plan they do not have a vision they do not know what they are doing. It is Budget by Budget and broken promise after broken promise. They are doing this because they have discovered poverty and they are desperate to do something to give the appearance that they are doing something. So they will crib it out of KiwiSaver take it off the future generations and try to kind of look after those who have been struggling for so long and give them a slight bit of reprieve now. But it is not a way to run a country it is not a way to build a foundation and it is not a way to improve the long-term interests of all New Zealanders and all New Zealand. They do not have an answer. They do not have a clue. They do not have a plan. They do not know what they are doing. They are out of touch out of ideas and rapidly out of time. They do not know what they are doing.Demolishing KiwiSaver taking away the kick-start is just another measure to further erode the strength that New Zealand desperately needs in its economic base. They have got nothing at all—they have got nothing at all to add to the long-term future economic base of New Zealand. Here was something—encourage people to get into savings encourage people to get into KiwiSaver give those kids a chance give them a start. And those workers who are on low and medium incomes give them help to get into KiwiSaver to build up their long-term savings and hopefully to give them a bit of dignity in retirement. But no Government members cannot look much further than the next balance date. And then they have to make up a fictional surplus as well to get them that far—to convince themselves that they know what they are doing to convince themselves that they have got a Budget that is going to make a difference. Well the only difference it is making is to make it much harder for hard-working Kiwis who just want a bit of help to get their savings under way. They just want a bit of help to get their KiwiSaver going and now it is being ripped from under them because this Government is desperate is out of ideas does not know what to do cannot manage the economy and is leaving all the problems built up for the next Government to have to fix and address.The problems are all mounting and this will be just one of them—the ongoing shallow capital base of New Zealand encouraged and fomented by this Government because it does not know what it is doing. It is thrashing around looking for an answer. It is thrashing around trying to convince itself that what it has done is going to be good for struggling hard-working New Zealanders and it is not. But the Government has got to do this. Government members have got to convince themselves that if they give the appearance of doing something and if they pat themselves on the back for discovering poverty then maybe they will be able to get through the next year as they rush around trying to find a solution to the other bigger problems.Government members talk about leakage. This is about their answer to leakage because apparently they are saying that the kick-start is not targeted at the right people. Well KiwiSaver is actually targeted at everybody. That is the whole thing about KiwiSaver. It is about giving every New Zealander a chance to have their savings. It is about giving every New Zealander a chance to get their savings habits under way from a young age—from a working age. But here National goes again. It never said this at the election. It never went into the election and said “That’s it.” The world knew they hated KiwiSaver. We thought the hatred had come to an end. We thought that they might do something constructive. We thought that they might do something to build New Zealand’s economic base. We thought that they might do something for the good of New Zealand’s economic future. But still they will not.David Bennett: Too little too late.ANDREW LITTLE: David Bennett thinks that the Waikato Expressway is doing something for New Zealand’s economic future. Well that is not enough—that is not enough. That is about ferrying people out of Auckland because they are desperate to get out of there and to get somewhere they can drive their car. It is not about building the economic base of New Zealand. National has got nothing to say about helping New Zealanders with their savings habits. Now we see that the most symbolic gesture of this Budget—the most symbolic gesture of this Budget—is yet more “short-termism” and ripping away the opportunity that hard-working Kiwis would have had to start their savings habit. Here National members are doing it on Saturday morning of Budget weekend. Here they go ripping away an opportunity for hard-working Kiwis who just want a chance to save and who just want a chance to contribute to the nation’s savings and to the good of the nation. Well here they go again. Here is the National Party again.The National Party as we know does not like KiwiSaver hates workers does not want to give them a hand and does not want to give them any support. It is pulling away the one chance they have got—the one bit of help they get—to get their savings habit under way. Here National is in Budget 2015 pulling it out from under them—ripping it up. National does not like working Kiwis trying to get ahead. It is the way the National Party operates—it has done so for the last 70 years. It is doing it again in office. It is about to come to an end. It will be the next Labour-led Government that restores KiwiSaver and that gives working New Zealanders a chance to get ahead for the good of all New Zealand.