Fitzsimons Jeanette: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16261] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 There is one fair way to give tax cuts if we have a surplus in the economy and we want to redistribute it to people and that is by having a tax-free income band at the bottom of the income scale—and the higher the income is the better. That means that all taxpayers get the same tax rebate whether they are beneficiaries low-income earners waged workers or the super wealthy. That has been the Green Party’s policy since some time in the mid-1990s. 
I was very pleased tonight to hear that Winston Peters has now picked up a Green idea despite saying in the same sentence that he does not much agree with us. He has picked up our policy on tax and I say good on him. 
When we fiddle with tax thresholds even if we do it as fairly as we possibly can we still always end up giving those on higher incomes a lot more in actual dollars than we give to those on low incomes and that increases the poverty gap in society. Michael Cullen has been quite clever in the way that he has devised this new taxation system. He has combined it with Working for Families and he has ensured that those workers on the lowest incomes will get a quarter that those on the medium wage will get a sixth and that those on $80000 and above will get an eighth. But those on $80000 are still getting more than twice as much in the hand each week than those on $10000—$28 a week as distinct from $12 in the first round. That shows that we have to be careful when we play with tax rates because after these tax cuts in terms of cash and real dollars there will in fact be a bigger gap between those on the lowest wages and those on the highest incomes than there is at the moment. 
But the biggest anomaly here is what happens to invalids the sick those who can only work part-time because they are caring for elderly parents and those who are trying to develop a career in the arts—for which they do not get paid at the moment—who are holding down a small part-time job to keep body and soul together because they are trying to do other creative things in their time. Those people will come off worst because they will get the least. Beneficiaries will in fact get nothing out of the tax cut system. They will get only a very very small amount out of Working for Families because it has always discriminated against the children of beneficiaries because they do not get the in-work tax credit. 
This tax legislation is probably not as bad as what National would have done which sounds like it would have been to remove the 39c tax rate altogether benefiting only those who earn over $60000—or as is shortly to be the case over $70000—but the fact is that this legislation will still not improve equity within our society. It still will not help the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. Invalids without children will be particularly hard hit. They do not get any Working for Families benefits as one would expect. They do not get any tax cuts either and their benefits go up only in relation to CPI while their costs go up in relation to the increased prices of food housing transport and energy all of which move much faster than the CPI. 
The Green Party in accordance with its cooperation agreement with the Government will be abstaining on this Budget and on the tax legislation that flows from it. But I have to say that we are not overwhelmed at the beneficence of these tax cuts particularly when—as I outlined in my speech on the Budget a short time ago—there are some very major problems facing us as a society and as an economy that are not being addressed. 
In relation to the Budget speech it is very obvious that the word “sustainability” has been dropped like a hot brick. We had a speech last year in which the Prime Minister used it 33 times. She did not use that word once today and I think that Michael Cullen used it once. But more particularly when one looks at the money in the Budget one sees that the only initiatives that take us in the direction of sustainability really are the ones that the Green Party has put up. “Carbon neutral” does not appear anywhere in the Budget speeches or in the rhetoric around it. There is an emissions trading scheme but we do not know whether it will go through; it keeps getting weakened and delayed. 
The Budget does not show a great sense of urgency in dealing with the big matters that will have the biggest effect on our economy in the future—that is oil depletion and continuous oil-price rises climate change and resources that are limited. We are bumping up against those limits in everything we do at the moment.