Bennett Paula: Budget Debate 
Bennett Paula: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9548] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 The only thing I would say to Green Party members is that I do not understand why you talk about problems and what you do not agree with yet you have come into the Chamber to abstain. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
PAULA BENNETT 
: I will not use the word “you” at all. It just seems a little perplexing. We have a party that says it has problems with the Budget yet its members have come into the Chamber to abstain. That just does not make sense at all. 
I was thinking as I was looking at the Budget that people wanted tax cuts and instead they got a “money-go-round Budget”. There is a lot of rhetoric. Earlier we heard a speaker from Labour talking about those crocodile tears about people on lower incomes. But there has been nothing more about crocodile tears from this current Government than there has been for many many years when its members talk about lower-income people. This Government had an opportunity to offer those people tax relief but instead it has given them increased costs. 
Let us see if we can discuss this in a rational way. So the Government has turned round and said that it will offer people the opportunity to pay into KiwiSaver and have something for their future. But have Government members actually spoken to any of those people whom they are mostly talking about and whom they profess to be looking after? 
When people looked at what this would mean for them—and we were speaking to some of them in the weekend—they said that they were thinking about what the future holds for them because that is supposedly what this Budget is about. The Budget is about the future and they were thinking about their future and what it would mean. Those lower-income families particularly the Pacific Island families I talked to said that when they thought about the future for themselves they thought about their families. They thought about how their families would look after them in their old age. That was what was important and that was how their families worked. But for that to happen they needed to be looking after their children and feeding their children now. We talked to them about paying $20 a week into KiwiSaver for when they are 65. They said they did not have the 20 bucks a week. One woman in a Pacific Island family said: “Get real man. Twenty bucks a week for me is five loaves of bread and three dozen eggs. I could actually feed my children lunch every day which they could take to school for 20 bucks a week. That’s what I could do with 20 bucks a week. I don’t have the money to be putting aside. I am barely able to support the family I have now. And I don’t want to be on a benefit; I actually want to be looking after mine and my own.” 
This particular woman said that to try to look after hers and her own—because being a beneficiary is not what she is about and not what she wants to be doing—she had taken on a second job of cleaning at night. Then she started talking about secondary tax and what that meant for her how it gave her so little in her pocket and what she could do. She said: “Don’t tell me Labour Party—that’s been telling me how you care for so long—what this Budget will do for me and my future. What I need to be doing is looking after my family now. It’s that sort of assistance that I needed.” She kept saying that she needed tax breaks. She wanted an extra 20 bucks a week in her hand of her own money—that would make a difference. 
I said to her: “Well hold on a moment. Working for Families is constantly being touted as the saving grace for people like you. You get a bit more money from it when you put your relief in—you’ve got to fill in a form.” And she said: “But I don’t want to be dependent on the Government for what I get every week.” She was saying—as lots of these lower-income families are saying—that she does not want to be dependent. These families do not want to have to fill in a form. They do not want to go cap in hand for their own money back. It is quite simple; they know that it is their money. 
This Government of course does not know that it is those people’s money. We need just to hear Dr Cullen who keeps referring to “his” money and the Government’s money that it is spending—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there is far too much noise. I remind members of Speakers’ rulings 57/3 that interjections are out of order unless they are rare and reasonable relevant and restrained. I add that one of the former Deputy Speakers the honourable Geoff Braybrooke said of interjections: “Let’s hope they are witty.” 
PAULA BENNETT 
: Thank you Mr Speaker but in all fairness I was feeling quite comfortable. I could hear members sort of yapping over there; I know the truth hurts and I know they do not like to hear someone talking about those families whom they profess to be looking after all of the time. 
When it really comes down to it it is about the level of dependency. You see it absolutely suits this Government to have people dependent on it. It absolutely supports its rhetoric; it makes it all worthwhile. This is exactly what Working for Families is about. The Government takes these lower-income families and tells them they can have KiwiSaver and how they can make a bit more money but the reality is that they ain’t going to be able to do it. They need every penny they have. One needs just to hear a colleague of the Government Mike Moore who wrote in today’s  
New Zealand Herald 
: “Useful steps in the Budget will help with savings. Good but they will cover just half the workforce.” Just half the workforce. What happens to the other half? Mike Moore wrote that. 
Just on that note I will talk a little more about Mike Moore. I was absolutely amazed earlier today—about 40 minutes ago—to hear Mark Gosche I think it was making comments about the differences between New Zealand and Australia and how he does not like us talking about them because it is bad for New Zealand and what it does and everything— 
Hon Member 
: That doesn’t sound like him. 
PAULA BENNETT 
: He did! But evidently Mike Moore likes to talk about the differences between Australia and New Zealand—Mike Moore is quite happy to. I will just read one little piece to the House quoted from Mike Moore in today’s  
New Zealand Herald 
: “It’s difficult for a Kiwi to accept”—he may have added in there “Mark Gosche”—“but Australia is doing better than New Zealand. Since 1990 Australia has moved from 17th in the OECD rankings to 7th; New Zealand has dropped from 20th to 22nd.” He then goes on to write more about what it means to be in Australia and what it means to be in New Zealand. 
This Government had an opportunity to turn things round. This Government had an opportunity to give people a bit of aspiration and a reason to want to be here. I am amazed that the whole attitude from Government members is: “It is our money to dish out how we feel is right. We will take more money off those lower middle and higher-income people than we need and then we will turn round and decide who gets it and we will dish it out if they come begging.” But they have to come begging in the right way because this Government likes to dish it out as if it is its own little savings bank. Dr Cullen has his own little money box and he decides who will get money and how they will get it without any real recognition that this is their own money. These are the people who are working hard and who are making the system work day after day week after week. They know how to spend their money better than anyone else. Quite frankly these people deserved a bit of money back. 
You know I will not stand here and say that the Labour Government does not care because I do not think that is right or fair. Some of my colleagues would—I have certainly heard it said before that there is a degree of “Labour does not care”. I do not think that is true. I actually think that at some level there is a level of caring. I think Labour members have just forgotten. I think they are just out of touch. They have had 8 years of it. They have Dr Cullen who stands up and talks about “his” money and how he will dish it out and we have just heard Darren Hughes talking about taxpayers and giving them some of the money. But it is the taxpayers’ money. They make it they turn it round and it is their money—it is as simple as that. 
We need to be looking at the fact that they want some of their own money back in their own pockets. It is not a big ask; it is not a big ask at all. The Government can throw in fancy things like KiwiSaver and we can all cross our fingers and hope that there will actually be something there for those lower-income families at the end of it but what people really want is the opportunity to get ahead. They do not want to be dependent on this Government. They do not want to be dependent on us either—they just do not want to be dependent. They wish to be making their own money; they wish to be turning it round; they wish to be supplying for their own. 
Certainly I am happy for Government members to stand up in reply to this debate and talk about the $20 and $27 a week we keep hearing about that people can pay into their KiwiSaver accounts. I am sure that some people will be quite happy about the system. But what about those who cannot find that 20 bucks? What about those who do not have that $27 a week? What about those who turn round and say that that money will feed their kids and that is where their priority is? Those people have been left behind. They have been forgotten. They have been totally turned away from this Government who no longer cares about them at all. 
I say thank God and thank goodness that next year we will see a National Government coming through a Government that can actually raise productivity turn it round and give people more of their money in their own pockets which is what they deserve.