Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): It is a pleasure to speak in this honourable House on behalf of the ACT Party in this Budget Policy Statement debate. I mean that quite sincerely because to have a Budget Policy Statement published by the Government required by statute to actually set out what the Government's intentions are how much money it intends to take out of the private sector as a percentage of GDP how much it expects to spend what it expects its net position to be in terms of debt and liabilities—to have those transparently displayed for all to see months before the Budget is actually brought down makes us a sophisticated country with transparent and open Government that is accountable to the people. I think we should never forget to pay tribute to those of us who went before us in this House such as Ruth Richardson who put in place the public finance frameworks that we have today that make us a well-governed country. I think we should all agree on that no matter which side of the House we are from.Putting that aside I think it is worth actually looking at what those numbers tell us. One of the things they tell us which runs counter to the narrative that we hear so often from the Opposition and out in public is that this Government has very very low net public debt. At around 23 percent of GDP it is among the lowest net public debt figures in the world. This Government has more room on its balance sheet than just about any other developed country and far more room than the really troublesome countries such as Greece and Portugal which have around 180 percent of GDP—almost nine times more debt on their Governments' books than we do.What is interesting and is not included in the Budget Policy Statement but perhaps should be is the level of private debt—that is household debt held by people other than the Government who live in New Zealand and have borrowed. That figure is truly alarming. Although we have some of the lowest public debt in the developed world we also have some of the highest private debt—that is people borrowing on their mortgages borrowing on their credit cards borrowing through their banks to do a variety of things and borrowing through finance companies. We are among the most indebted countries on the planet. That lends you to ask: what should we be doing when the public sector balance sheet is in fantastic shape and the private sector balance sheets are looking a bit edgy? Also in this Budget Policy Statement is the observation that the Government is about to go into surplus not just little surpluses but huge surpluses—$20 billion of surplus nearly 10 percent of GDP over the coming few years. I just have to laugh when Fletcher Tabuteau gets up and says that the surpluses will not cover the interest on the Government's debt. Well if Government debt is 23 percent and the Government's cost of borrowing is 4 percent that means that the interest repayments are about 1 percent of GDP and the surplus is coming down the line at 2 or 3 percent of GDP. Clearly the surpluses are going to be far greater than the interest on public debt. If Mr Tabuteau wondered about that he might have asked himself a simpler question which is: why is the forecast for debt as a percentage of GDP to go down by about a percentage point a year for the next 4 years? Well it is either because the economy is going to grow very very fast or because the overall amount of debt is going to reduce. But I digress.If we have got a public sector with a very strong balance sheet and a private sector with a little bit of a stressed balance sheet then there is a very clear thing that should happen when those big surpluses start coming down the line and that is that it is time for tax relief. When Michael Cullen introduced the top tax rate of 39 percent it was for only so-called rich pricks". Only 5 percent of taxpayers were to pay it. Coming into this year we are going to see half of all taxpayers earning over $70000 and paying the top tax rate. The Government's refusal to adjust those tax brackets for inflation has meant more and more hard-working Kiwis drifting into the top tax bracket with someone on $71000 paying the same top tax rate as a billionaire in New Zealand. That is wrong. The ACT Party says that nobody on a five-figure salary should be paying the top rate of tax. We need to move those brackets and give people tax relief. Not only is it right to reward people for their effort by letting them keep more of the money that was theirs in the first place but it is also the sensible thing to do given the high levels of private debt and low levels of public debt that we currently have.You have to pay tribute to Bill English for that scenario because we have actually had a period of fiscal restraint and relatively smart investment in public services over the past 8 years with Bill English as the finance Minister and now as the Prime Minister. That is why when the parties line up in this House I am very proud to be leading an ACT Party that keeps those people over there and these people over here. I am very pleased to see Bill English and now Steven Joyce as finance Minister because I know from the Finance and Expenditure Committee how hard Grant Robertson works and how strong his grasp of the detail is. That is why we have got to keep him over there so he never becomes the Minister of Finance.That does not mean that everything is rosy under the current Government. One thing that is not in the Budget Policy Statement but perhaps should be is superannuation. It has been a big topic this week. The Budget Policy Statement says that when public debt returns to 20 percent of GDP or below we will resume contributions to the Cullen fund or the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. That is nutty economics. Nobody in this House if they have got a brain would borrow money against their mortgage or forgo mortgage repayments in order to trade in the global sharemarket. As Chris Bishop made the point perfectly adequately earlier it is always easy to have 20/20 hindsight in markets. If anybody in this House knew what the sharemarket was going to do in the next 10 years they would not have to fundraise for their political party ever again. If they are not prepared to do it with their own money they should not be investing taxpayers' money in the global sharemarket.Whatever happens with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund we still have a serious problem with the long-term affordability and sustainability of NZ superannuation and particularly with the fairness. People can always say: "Oh well you can afford anything if you make it a priority." That is true—that is true. We could put the age of entitlement for superannuation back to 60 years and people in my generation could pay the taxes to fund that for the rest of their lives. Technically true—that is possible but it is not fair. That is why it was a fantastic revelation this week that the National Government does understand that the scheme requires adjustment but sadly yet again it has missed the point of intergenerational fairness. By ensuring that there will be no change for the next 20 years we are going to see younger generations paying $58 billion of extra tax to maintain superannuation at 65 for the baby boomers. As soon as they have all retired the adjustment will be made.New Zealanders under 45 are spewing not just at the money and the mathematics of this but at the injustice and the snubbery that they have experienced at the hands of the Government with this proposal. If they had the guts if they had the leadership that we heard about from the previous speaker they would do it fairly; they would start gradually incrementally increasing the age of entitlement to New Zealand superannuation and they would do it starting as early as 2020. That would bring us into line with Canada the UK the US Belgium the Netherlands Australia—all of the countries listed in the National Government's own puff piece on its policy all of whom are adjusting their ages of superannuation entitlement in the 2020s. It is not because they cannot afford to do it later but because they have regard to fairness between generations and they want to make the adjustment now rather than waiting until all baby boomers have retired.In conclusion we are fortunate in New Zealand to have a Budget Policy Statement to have the level of transparency we have and we are very fortunate about the figures that it shows. We are in a good space publicly but we need to have tax relief for our private sector and we need a little bit more gumption when it comes to confronting our long-term challenges such as those we regard in superannuation."