Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 May 2010. Volume:663;Page:11165. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am going to talk about superannuitants and the old diggers the people who receive war pensions. Part 3 of the bill will supposedly compensate our superannuitants our pensioners for the cost of living as a result of the increase in GST. But that is another cruel hoax as is much of the Budget because it does not say that the compensation has an expiry date. The cost of living will increase. In fact the compensation being offered does not compensate for the true increase in the cost of living because for superannuitants who live at least a little on the interest from their savings the increase in GST will lower the actual value of their savings. They may still have $20000 or $30000 in the bank but the value of that will be less in real terms after GST is increased; there is no compensation for that. Although they may receive some short-term compensation in superannuation in the longer term their savings will not be compensated for. Of course in the longer term if the Government commits to retaining superannuation at 66 percent of the average wage in fact the value of that compensation will disappear and erode over time. It has an expiry date on it. If the Government were saying that it was going to permanently increase the level of superannuation in order to compensate for the GST increase then that would be an entirely different thing. But it is not doing that. The Government will not compensate superannuitants on a permanent basis for the increase in GST. Our senior citizens are being swindled by this Government. It promised that it would not increase costs for superannuitants but that is exactly what it is doing. Superannuitants will have to face 5.9 percent inflation which means that the value of their savings in the bank will be worth 5.9 percent less but the Government is not doing anything to offset that or to help them. Senior citizens are being diddled out of the value of their savings. 
The other thing that is directly relevant to this which I get asked about by superannuitants in my electorate is the kind of country we are leaving for future generations. That is something that superannuitants think about. They think about their grandchildren; they will be thinking about how this Budget loads up a mortgage on their grandchildren to pay for tax cuts that are disproportionably targeted to those on the highest incomes. Superannuitants are concerned about that because they want to think they will be leaving the country for their grandchildren in a better state than it was when they found it. But in fact they will not be. This Government is spending that inheritance and loading up debt on future generations. This Government is interested in only the next 18 months. It is interested only in being re-elected. 
It is not interested in 10 years from now when half a million New Zealanders will be retiring. It is making no provision and no saving for that. It has not recommenced contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. It has not done that. In fact it will not do that even when it gets back into surplus which was another of its promises. So now that is another broken promise. I ask members how many there have been. I have lost count. I cannot remember how many broken promises we have had out of this Budget. It is full of broken promises. There are broken promises on interest-free student loans broken promises on early childhood education broken promises on GST—it is all just broken promises. This is a Government that cannot be taken at its word before an election. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Or after. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: People cannot rely on the Government delivering on what it says it will before an election. As Trevor Mallard has pointed out we cannot rely on the Government’s word after an election either because it is a Government that simply shifts around. 
John Key is very relaxed about it all. I ask members how prime ministerial his speech was in the Budget debate yesterday; he spent the first 10 minutes laughing and cracking jokes. That was very dignified and prime ministerial! People have rung me to ask whether I think it was undignified; I think that it was very undignified of him. It would have been good to hear the Prime Minister in the first 10 minutes of his speech actually mention the Budget. He can focus on the Labour Party if he likes but maybe he should have talked about the Budget that his Minister of Finance had just delivered. 
Perhaps the Prime Minister is just embarrassed by the Budget; perhaps he is embarrassed about the number of promises he has broken. He was the one who stared down the barrel of a camera and said that his Government would not increase GST. In fact he said “If we do a half decent job growing the economy then that won’t be happening.” That is a broken promise. By the Prime Minister’s own admission the Government has not done a good job of managing the economy because 18 months’ into its term of government it has already broken that promise and it has already increased GST. This is a Budget of broken promises.