Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Hide Rodney: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:622;Page:17383] 
11.  
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What percentage of full-time workers are expected to pay some tax at the 39 cent tax rate in the 2004-05 financial year? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I am advised that the figure is 22 percent. 
Rodney Hide 
: Will the Minister of Finance give any consideration to a tax cut for hard-working Kiwis as a Christmas bonus especially as the current Prime Minister promised in her 1999 campaign’s opening address that only “5 percent of earners” would pay extra tax? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Government does not make the strange assumption that only people earning over $60000 a year are hard-working New Zealanders. I know quite a few people—in this House even—who earn over $60000 and whom I would not regard as hard-working and I know large numbers of people earning under $60000 who are very hard-working. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was quite specifically about the consideration of tax cuts; it was not about who is hard-working and who is not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the Minister addressed the question. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What proportion of full-time workers were paying the top rate in the 1999-2000 tax year? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: In 1999 the proportion was 41 percent. Of course if the ACT party’s flat tax rate were adopted 100 percent of workers would be paying the top tax rate. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: There would also be 100 percent paying the bottom rate. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That is right. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister stand by his comments that “Ninety-five percent of people will not be asked to pay more tax. Instead only the top 5 percent of income earners will pay more.”; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: When the policy was released that was in fact the estimated proportion of the population that was earning under $60000 a year. That 95 percent is now 89 percent—11 percent of income earners are in the top tax bracket. I would finally point out that the OECD report out only 2 days ago warns strongly against any fiscal stimulus in New Zealand in the current macroeconomic environment. A tax cut is a fiscal stimulus. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Minister have a clear conscience knowing that he is taxing New Zealanders to the hilt that he is gaining huge windfall tax gains and further that he is about to tax the New Zealand motorist a further 5c a litre on petrol; how does he justify such an approach—or is it the Tottenham Hotspurs connection coming out in him? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The first two questions can be answered. The third part I might have sympathy with. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes we did lose last weekend Mr Speaker. As I pay the top tax rate on 70 percent of my income I have a very clear conscience on this matter. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Has the Minister carried out or seen any analysis that indicates the drop in the number of taxpayers on the 39c rate that would result from United Future’s proposal to adjust the present $60000 threshold for inflation to a new level of $68000; if so how many fewer people would that be? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have that exact number in front of me. I think the member has it in the answer to a written question that he submitted to me. The issue becomes in part at that point that if tax cuts are regarded as appropriate or macroeconomically sensible why would one simply concentrate on the upper end of the income scale unless one suffered from this strange ACT party belief that only people on high incomes are hard-working? 
Kenneth Wang 
: What percentage of workers does he think should pay the top rate of tax? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am quite happy if 11 percent of income earners pay the top rate of tax just as that member is quite happy to have a policy where everybody pays exactly the same rate of tax no matter what his or her income is. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek leave to table in the House the Rt Hon Helen Clark’s “leadership integrity vision” speech where she promised that only the top 5 percent of earners would be paying any more. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.