Copeland Gordon: Appropriation (2004/05 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Copeland Gordon: Appropriation (2004/05 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:619;Page:14958] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I wait with interest to find out how the ACT party would help the family on $100000 with six kids. When Rodney Hide decides what he will do to help that family I ask him to let me and the rest of the House know. But I will not hold my breath because I do not think there is actually anything coming the other way. In the 2002 Budget which was delivered immediately ahead of the nation going into election mode the word “family” was not mentioned once. In the 2003 Budget on the other hand it featured strongly and in the 2004 Budget the words “family” and “family policy” have taken centre stage. Why has the change occurred? Simply stated it is because at the 2002 election the people of New Zealand spoke clearly of the need to refocus policy on the family by electing United Future with its strong focus on family values and family building to Parliament. United Future therefore welcomes the more than $1.1 billion worth of new initiatives that this appropriation bill will contribute to the support of New Zealand families and especially to the support of working families in the low and middle income brackets. It is a great first step. It is the right thing to do and it will benefit hundreds of thousands of families. 
Let us not forget however that family concerns need to remain at the top of the Government’s agenda as it moves forward. Our social statistics are there for all to see and have recently been described by the Minister of Finance Dr Cullen as intractable—an analysis incidentally that I disagree with although I believe it will take us at least a generation to restore family and community life in New Zealand to the position they occupied 30 years ago. Many of our statistics remain bleak. Some 320000 of our children continue to receive child support from the Inland Revenue Department which collects liable-parent contributions from 212000 people mainly men. Behind those statistics lie the growing phenomena of fatherless and sole parent families—mainly women. New Zealand now has the second-highest level of sole parent families amongst the OECD nations. Some 50 percent of all Maori and a lower but still high percentage of other children are now growing up without a father in the home. The marriage rate has fallen the number of divorces has increased and we have the second-highest rate of both abortion and teenage pregnancy in the OECD. Behind those bare statistics there is a great deal of individual pain disappointment stress and even psychological breakdown. The financial cost is massive. It is now estimated to be about $5 billion each year or roughly equal to the total tax paid by companies large and small annually. 
In those circumstances we must do more than just bring ambulances to the bottom of the cliff. We need to make a yet stronger commitment to having a fence at the top of the cliff and I believe there is a great deal more that the Government could do in that regard. The Families Commission opened for business in July with a wonderful line-up of commissioners and a commitment to make a difference for New Zealand families. The commission has begun its work and guided by its research I hope that Governments of whatever hue they may be will look to do a lot more in the area of parent education marriage preparation and relationship-building skills. The many charities and other community groups in this country have developed a variety of extremely good programmes that can assist literally anyone who is a parent—be that person married in a de facto relationship a solo parent or whatever the person’s situation may be—to improve his or her parenting skills in the interests of both the children and the common good of our society. Simply stated we need every New Zealand parent to be the best parent he or she can be. United Future will therefore continue to advocate for the provision of vouchers to subsidise those courses thus encouraging all New Zealanders to upskill in the area of adult relationships and parenting. 
In connection with that I was interested when I was in Australia a few weeks ago to see that the Australian Government has taken a positive lead in that area. It has established 65 mainly church-based centres throughout the country that are now offering Australian families real practical hands-on skill upgrading in the areas of relationship building and relationship enrichment. I was very interested to note the response to that of the Labor Party in Australia. Mark Latham said straight away that it was great but it was not enough. I want to contrast that with the situation here because at the moment we are debating comparisons between Australian and New Zealand a great deal. I would say that in this area Australia has taken a step forward and that its step is one that we should emulate and follow. Similar things to those introduced in Australia have also been done in the United States of America with very very good and tangible results. They demonstrate quite clearly that if people have for example marriage preparation courses before they get married the rate of divorce drops significantly. That is a great thing because ideally every child should have a mum and a dad at home for his or her upbringing development character formation and so on. 
We also—unlike Rodney Hide I suspect—actually have a solution to the problem of the gap that still remains in the area of the support for the family notwithstanding the initiatives the Government has taken in its Working for Families package. When that package was announced John Key very quickly went out and did some sums. He came back and reported to the press and to this House that he had calculated that a one-income two-parent family living in the south or west of Auckland or in Wellington City and earning $38000 a year would end up in somewhat the same situation as a family earning $60000 a year after the family support measures were taken into account. The family on $60000 a year—that is a family earning $22000 a year more than a family on $38000—would at the end of the day be better off only to the tune of $2376. The response of Steve Maharey and Michael Cullen was that high marginal tax rates are always a product of such systems. 
But there is an answer to that problem and that answer is income splitting for two-parent families. All the examples given by John Key—and I have sent these figures to him and to Dr Cullen—focused on one-parent families. From my figures it is quite obvious that if we allowed families to split their income for tax purposes we would solve that problem. If we consider the family on $60000 a year which John Key put out in his figures and enable both partners to split their income on an equal basis we would find they would be $5346 a year better off than the family on $38000. In other words the gap between the two would double simply by allowing income splitting. 
Income splitting is an idea whose time has come. The Working for Families package assisted families on low incomes through to those on middle incomes. The middle-income area is exactly where income splitting starts to make a difference and that goes right on through to a family that earns $120000 a year. Although Rodney Hide defined the problem with regard to the family on $100000 a year that has six kids he has not come up with an answer to that problem. But I am giving this House the answer today—that is income splitting for families. That would make a difference and a tremendous difference to people right through from the middle-income families and on upwards. Therefore it is an idea whose time has come. We would like to see that happen in the future. 
It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the other ways that United Future differs from the Government in relation to the levels of taxation imposed on New Zealanders. We continue to believe that income tax brackets should be regularly adjusted for inflation. We did that in the Budget for the family support package; every time inflation goes up by 5 percent we are to adjust the package. But the Government still refuses to do that for the income tax rate itself and therefore continues to overtax New Zealanders—and to overtax them progressively more as each year goes by. The Government refuses to index the tax brackets for inflation. We also believe that the company tax rate should be lowered from 33 percent to 30 percent. That has nothing to do with anything other than the simple reality that it would lower the cost of capital and attract more capital into New Zealand companies which are the engine room of the economy. That would enable us to grow and to grow quickly. As is well known United Future also believes that local body rates should be zero-rated for GST purposes. 
Those are all affordable and just measures and could be readily financed by for example a better mix of private and public provisions in the areas of health education and prisons. They could also be funded if the Government gave away its unduly profligate style of scattering taxpayers’ money in all directions—often we are advised by the Auditor-General without even a requirement for audited accounts to be provided. One cannot get a grant from the Lottery Grants Board without audited accounts but one can get money handed out by this Government without audited accounts. That situation really needs to stop and to stop soon. 
I sum up by saying we cannot have a strong and prosperous nation without having strong and prosperous families. After all a nation is no more than the sum total of its individual parts.