Nash Stuart: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Nash Stuart: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 May 2010. Volume:663;Page:11170. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 When we talk about the commencement date there is a slight concern. GST increases are coming in on 1 October and cuts to personal taxes are coming in on 1 October. The systems are changing over in the middle of a financial year. Firms have the end of their financial year either at the end of April or at the end of the calendar year; I have never heard of any starting their financial year on 1 October. As we know and as the Minister in the chair the Hon Peter Dunne himself pointed out the Minister has set up a commission or a task force or something to help small to medium sized business with their questions their concerns and the issues of compliance costs around GST. This commencement date will only compound that further because I suspect businesses will have to run two series of accounts and two payrolls and the cost of that will be higher than it should have been. So I have some concerns around that clause. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
STUART NASH 
: I was looking at the title over the break and I do not think that the title we have at the moment is a true reflection of the bill. The bill is called the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill; it should probably be called the “Tax Cuts for the Extremely Wealthy Bill”. If people earn really big money they will get a really big tax cut from this bill. 
The name of Paul Reynolds has been dragged out at every debate but there is a good reason for that: he is one of our highest-earning people. He will do incredibly well out of this bill. He will get about $1600 extra a week or an extra $88000 a year in the hand so he is absolutely rapt about this bill. But for the worker on the median wage the tax cut is about $5 a week or $262 a year. Eighty eight thousand dollars versus $260—that is not really very equitable is it? I do not think that that is equitable at all in fact and I think that the vast majority of New Zealanders out there will be looking at this—not enviously because New Zealanders are not envious sorts of people—and thinking that it is not really fair. So we could call the bill the “Don’t Be Envious Tax Bill”— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Jealous. 
STUART NASH 
: —sorry the “Don’t Be Jealous Tax Bill”—because the Prime Minister signalled very early on before we knew what would be in this bill that he thought there would be Kiwis who would be jealous about this bill. What message does that send? We did not even know what the tax package would be yet the Prime Minister told Kiwis not to be jealous. Immediately everyone knew that this was a bill where the top players the very wealthy would get a substantial amount of money—like Paul Reynolds’ extra $1600 a week—and the person on the median wage would get an extra $5 a week. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: How much? 
STUART NASH 
: Five dollars a week. As I said Kiwis are not envious by nature; we are not jealous by nature. In fact we do not ask for very much at all. But what we do ask for— 
David Shearer 
: We want a fair go. 
STUART NASH 
: Mr Shearer is dead right—we want a fair deal. We kind of know when we are being ripped off or rorted and we do not like it. We just do not like it. So when someone on the median wage who will get an extra $5 a week hears about someone like Paul Reynolds getting an extra $1600 a week or John Key getting an extra $350 a week it does not feel right. It actually feels to them as if they have been ripped off a little. As I say it is just not fair. 
How about a title like the “Budget of Broken Promises Bill” or the “Broken Promises Bill”? John Key looked at the camera and said that he would not raise GST. He also said that he would not borrow for tax cuts. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Jonathan Coleman said that too. 
STUART NASH 
: Yes. In fact every member on that side of the Chamber went to the electorate and said that they would not raise GST or borrow for tax cuts. But this bill allows the Government to borrow $1.1 billion over 4 years for tax cuts—$1.1 billion over 4 years for tax cuts. In this bill there is provision for increasing GST. This bill increases GST for every single New Zealander. It increases it for Paul Reynolds but he does not care; he has about $1600 a week extra. But average people on the median wage will get an extra $5. This is the bill of broken promises. 
How about the “Inflation Upwards and Onwards Bill”? As the Government has said in the Budget because of this bill inflation will rise to about 5.9 percent. That rise will eradicate the real value of the savings of many many Kiwis. There is a bit of a misconception over on that side of the Chamber because this bill is about broken promises and inflation. This is not a great bill at all.