Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11072] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 That speech by the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Mr Foss was— 
Nicky Wagner 
: It was fantastic. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: No it was not fantastic; it was insightful because of what it said and what it did not say. That member started his speech by talking about this Budget and the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill being fair and equitable. Let us examine what this bill does. My colleague David Cunliffe said a person on the average wage after we factor in the increased GST and inflation at 5.9 percent will be $30 a week worse off than at present. A millionaire earning $1 million a year will be $1000 a week better off. Now I do not know how Mr Foss in his little world explains and defines fairness and equity but in my world that is not fair is not equitable and is not right. 
A person on the average wage apparently—Mr Key said this to every New Zealander and there are many people who are worse off today—should not be jealous of the guys on the top of the heap the super-wealthy. They should not look up at the super-wealthy and be jealous. Well Kiwis in my view are not generally jealous creatures. They will not be jealous; they will feel let down angry and disappointed. I wonder what people on the average wage will think tonight about being $30 a week worse off because at the hands of that crew and its mismanagement of the economy we are about to see some of the worst inflation that we have experienced and the increase in GST. Will people hang on the words of Mr Foss who says this is fair and equitable when they realise that if they were earning a million bucks a year they would get $1000 a week back? I wonder what Mr Foss on the campaign stump will say to those people in his constituency or where he resides who are on the average wage. They will come to his office and say to him that they do not think it is fair or equitable that they are 30 bucks a week worse off because of his mismanagement of inflation and his GST hike. What will he say to them? Silence—silence is deafening. What will he say to them? He will not have an answer because he knows—and if he does not know there is a word that I will not use but it is the word for what he is—that this is not fair and is not equitable. He knows that this is not fair and is not equitable. 
When we look at this Budget we can see what we get. We get inflation going up by 5.9 percent. We get debt skyrocketing. If we look at page— 
Amy Adams 
: What? Skyrocketing—unbelievable! 
Nicky Wagner 
: That’s amazing. How does he get away with it? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh hang on; the squawk-boxes are going over there. Well I invite those members to look at page 30 of volume B.2 and B.3 of the Budget documents. The report states: “Financing new and maturing debt will require the Government to borrow around $240 million every week over the next three years.” 
Amy Adams 
: It’s your mismanagement. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Hang on; is there a squawk over there? I say to Amy Adams that she should look at page 30. Then the report states: “Debt is projected to reach $68 billion”—that is billion with a “b” for the benefit of the uninformed over there—“by 2014/15.” If we look at the next sentence we see that it is a cracker: “This substantial rise in debt will mean that interest costs more than double.” So inflation is going up debt is going up and interest is going up. What effect will that have on the average Kiwi? 
If we turn over to page 40 of the same document and look at “Figure 2—Finance costs” we see that the financing costs the interest on that massive debt will not even start to decline until about 2021. So we know— 
Amy Adams 
: That’s from the party that wants us to borrow more. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I invite the member to read her own Budget documents because that is what they say. Debt will be going up inflation will be going up and interest costs will be massively exploding which will effectively mortgage our kids’ future. What is fair and equitable about that of course is that the person on the average wage will be 30 bucks a week worse off but a millionaire someone who earns a million bucks a year will get back a thousand bucks a week. 
So I ask the members opposite to explain their definition of fairness and equity today. I ask them to tell us in the coming days and in the coming hours of this debate how it is possible for people on the average wage to feel that they have been treated fairly or equitably when they are 30 bucks a week worse off which is what the documents show. I would like Government members to explain how they will justify that to average New Zealanders. 
It was said—I think in Muldoon’s time when we had an explosion in inflation —that the biggest thief taking money from our wage pocket was inflation. The biggest thief taking money from the pockets of working men and women was at that time said to be the spectre of inflation. Now inflation is projected to go to 6 percent. So interest is going up debt is going up inflation is going up and the average Joe in the street will be worse off. I would like those members— 
Nicky Wagner 
: Not true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Nicky Wagner says no and shakes her head. I doubt whether she has got past the contents page of most of the Budget documents but I give her an invitation. I know that members on this side of the House are quite happy to go out to their constituencies have a group of average New Zealanders on the average wage come in and debate the Budget with the National crew. Let us have a meeting about it. Let us get the responses of people who are on the average wage to the Budget in a hall anywhere in this country—in Otaki in Dunedin in Rimutaka or in Auckland. Let us get a group of them together in a room and ask them whether they feel they have been dealt to fairly and equitably by that crew over there. 
Phil Twyford 
: They’ve been dealt to all right. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: They have been dealt to my colleague said—absolutely; they have been dealt to. 
The only rooms that the members opposite the National crew will be happy and comfortable in are the cabins of the yachts parked in the Viaduct Basin harbour which belong to the people who will be a thousand bucks a week better off. I can see Gerry Brownlee in the galley with his mates who are on a million bucks a year. They will be congratulating Mr Brownlee and saying how wonderful it is that he is giving a thousand dollars a week back to them. But we will not see Gerry Brownlee at the food bank—well we might but for different reasons—talking with ordinary New Zealanders. The food banks in my electorate and around this country are chocker but we will not see Gerry Brownlee and Bill English at the Salvation Army at Presbyterian Support or at the Methodist Central Mission as people rock up day after day trying to make—[ 
Interruption 
] “Evidence” Mr Bennett says. He wants to be given evidence. Well I invite him to come to Kaiapoi and visit Kaiapoi Community Services—old “Cue-ball” in the back row over there—where I will introduce him to some of the lost and lonely people in my electorate. I will introduce him to them and they will be very happy to sit down with that member Mr Bennett and explain to him how life goes for people who are on the bottom of the heap. 
It might be instructive for Mr Bennett to actually meet somebody who is scratching for it. It might be instructive for Mr Bennett to meet a couple of constituents in my electorate one of whom is a builder who lost his job. His wife is in two part-time jobs. They have a vegetable garden and grow produce that is better than that of Turners and Growers. They preserve that produce freeze it and do everything else that they can to make ends meet. They have a couple of kids. But that family cannot make it and their mortgage may well be foreclosed. I can tell members that after the Budget today that family of four will not be any better off. They will not feel that they have been treated fairly. They will not feel that the veil has been lifted from politics in New Zealand that there has suddenly been a redistribution of wealth and that they will be looked after. Oh no! 
Nicky Wagner 
: They are. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: So if Mr Bennett and the other member over there whose name I cannot remember want to come to my electorate and meet some of the lost and lonely people—those who live on income that is below the average wage—let alone the people on the average wage who will be $30 a week worse off then I am quite happy to take them around. But they just squawk over there. 
I am sure that Kate Wilkinson a Cabinet Minister who resides in my electorate would not know a poor person if she fell over one. I wonder whether she is prepared to have a public meeting with a group of people on the average wage and to front up and explain to them that she is a Cabinet Minister and that she sat in Cabinet and voted for this package. I wonder whether she is prepared to say that she sold out Waimakariri and the rest of New Zealand and that she did not oppose a thing. I wonder whether she will tell that to the people on the average wage or whether she will swan around the various public houses and clubs in New Zealand where those members over there enjoy the finer things of life. She will feel very comfortable in those places I am sure because she will not be challenged there; she will be congratulated. 
I say to Government members that they should have a good look in the dictionary and see what “fairness” and “equity” mean. They should go and talk to a few ordinary people who are scratching for that now. They should not go and talk in the fashion-ways of Christchurch—no no—but should go and talk to some ordinary people and ask them whether they feel equitably and fairly treated today. Those members should ask ordinary people whether they feel ambitious for New Zealand or inspired by this Budget. Oh no! They feel let down angry and disappointed.