Parker David: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second Reading 
Text is subject to correction 
Parker David: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4273. Text is subject to correction.] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I hope not to disappoint the last speaker Todd McClay. I see the prior speaker has brought up the issue of  
Serious Fun 
 a book to be published by Paul Goldsmith I think. Of course Paul Goldsmith is the biographer of John Banks— 
Dr David Clark 
: The hagiographer. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The hagiographer—that is right. Actually there are two biographies already on John Banks. One was a vanity book which was the one that Paul Goldsmith authored. The other was a more transparent biography of some of his prior things— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Noel Harrison’s book? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —that is right by Noel Harrison—called  
Banks: Behind the Mask 
. Because I stood against Mr Banks I had the misfortune of reading both. I not sure whether this  
Serious Fun 
 is poking fun at Mr Banks in the next part of his career or whether it is about some other topic.  
There is a serious point to be made about that though and that is that rather than getting on and dealing with the important decisions that need to be taken through some pro-growth tax reform and through some really significant changes to savings over time in New Zealand which the Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill only tinkers with this Government has left tinkering and seems to be spending more of its time managing its own faux pas than it does managing the interests of the country. Whether it is fiascos at ACC with exaggeration as to the level of problems in ACC by Dr Nick Smith—followed by a miraculous cure about a year later. Having jacked premiums up higher than he needed to he then dropped them down for the election then he eventually bit the dust because of some other problems. Since then we have had John Judge dumped. I did not agree with everything he did but I actually did think he was a decent person and did not deserve the indignities that he has suffered in recent months. We have had other— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Even this morning. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Even this morning it continues.  
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Judith Collins dumped on him this morning. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Yes she dumped on him this morning and accused him of sort of covering up documents rather than those documents having been wiped off a computer by ACC itself. Other things going wrong are legion. The latest Budget we had was all about increasing class sizes to improve teacher quality. What a nonsense. That one fell. That one bit the dust.  
This bill itself as the prior speaker the man from Rotorua said does increase the compulsory contribution under KiwiSaver to “3 plus 3” but what it does not do is expand the scheme to more people or set out a path for the future that has savings under that scheme growing progressively over time. New Zealand needs both of those fundamental steps if it is to right the wrongs that we have had in this country for decades now since the last National Government to tinker with saving schemes Mr Muldoon undermined— 
Paul Goldsmith 
: You weren’t listening. The member wasn’t listening to the answer to question No. 1 today. It was talking about savings. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Oh he talked about savings—OK. Mr Goldsmith tries to defend himself by saying that Mr English in answering at question time today said that there has been a decrease in household debt in New Zealand in the last 4 years. You would expect that. You would expect that because in a recession people put their cheque books away. They do not buy cars they do not buy as many dishwashers or home improvements and things and they do not buy as many books Mr Goldsmith—they do not buy as many books. How much to you think New Zealand household debt has gone down by? 
Dr David Clark 
: You’d expect 10 percent or something wouldn’t you? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: By 0.2 percent Dr Clark—0.2 percent. Those members claim that that is some wonderful success—0.2 percent. I thought Mr English went through that part of the question very quickly. It was almost sotto voce “0.2 percent” then he carried on with the rest of his answer.  
This Government is failing to address the big issues. We need everyone who is in work except in cases of hardship—where they have a serious illness for example—in KiwiSaver. That is the big difference between Australia and New Zealand. We had Mr English again saying: “Oh it’s resources.” It is resources he was saying. Then why is it that we have net migration out of Taranaki? When I uncovered that statistic this week I was most intrigued to think: “Ah well I’m sure we will have that same old excuse now that the excuse about Greece is wearing thin.” given that people are not leaving New Zealand because of Greece’s problems; they are leaving because of New Zealand’s problems. 
Andrew Little 
: A two-speed economy in Taranaki.  
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: A two-speed economy in Taranaki. Unfortunately they are both a bit slow relative to Australia because this Government refuses to take the decisions that are necessary in order to get the economy moving. These are long-term entrenched problems but we will not overcome them unless the Government takes the decision that New Zealanders need it to take and that businesses need it to take so that the economy starts moving. There are some decisions that business can take. There are some decisions that business cannot take. Our population relies upon the Government taking those right decisions and they are not being taken.  
As we have heard from Dr Clark real wages are dropping. Then we hear the Minister of Finance say: “Oh not after tax.” What he does not tell you is his not-after-tax figure. It is true enough if you are one of the highest income earners in New Zealand who got 40 percent of the tax cuts that went to the top 10 percent; their after-tax real wages have gone up a little bit. But there are other people— 
Simon O’Connor 
: Tell the full story! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am telling you the whole story. The real wages after tax of the lower deciles in the economy have not gone up. They have not gone up; they have gone down. That is another reason why we have got this great outflow of people to Australia or this terrible outflow of people to Australia. They have no sense of optimism that they can have a profitable and secure future in their own country. Now we have reached the terrible situation in that the Government promised it was going to reverse this drain to Australia but we have had it go up and 40 percent of the people who are leaving are between the age of 18 and 30 from the regions as well as the cities. Those who are leaving from the regions are not replaced by immigration into Auckland. We have an ageing population in our regions. We have a spiral downwards in some of those centres. It is very sad and I suspect it is not going to change much under this Government.  
The Government says that unemployment is not as bad as it is in other countries and that is true. Unemployment is not as bad as it would be if we were not losing 53000 per annum to Australia. 
David Bennett 
: Oh! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We have David Bennett say “Oh!” and throw off at that comment. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: He just woke up. He was snoring. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No actually he was not asleep. He was not asleep.  
Paul Goldsmith 
: This speech lacks punch. Come on. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: This speech lacks punch—OK. Well I will let Judy over there take the next call.  
The Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill does another thing that I am not sure—although overall we are voting for this bill—is right. Contact Energy complains that this bill is changing the laws relating to the taxing of bonus shares issued by companies under profit distribution schemes. The one public company that this was going to affect in New Zealand to a significant extent was Contact Energy. Contact Energy came along to the select committee and said “Look don’t do this to us.” because actually what the bill is doing is making it harder for it to raise the capital that it thinks it needs in its business. It currently operates under a rule that enables it to have people retaining some of their earnings in the company and taking a bonus share in lieu of a dividend which was causing no loss of tax to the revenue but was causing an increased rate of leaving retained earnings in the company to the benefit of that company and probably increasing New Zealanders’ savings.  
Again the Government did not listen. It did not listen to Contact Energy which said that this was going to decrease the rate of savings in New Zealand and decrease the capital available in that sector of our economy for no good reason. The concern that the Inland Revenue Department had was that these schemes could be misused in other parts of the economy but they are not currently being. So why do we not wait until they are being misused before we fix this fictitious problem? At the moment it is a future problem rather than a current problem. Instead the Government moved on this again a somewhat peripheral matter when it should have been dealing with bigger issues.  
Record numbers of people are going to Australia exports are decreasing and the Government is not pulling the levers it has control of to reverse that trend. We are not doing the things that we need to do to improve our productive export economy and the economy is not rebalancing.