Connell Brian: Taxation (Annual Rates Maori Organisations Taxpayer Compliance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Connell Brian: Taxation (Annual Rates Maori Organisations Taxpayer Compliance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:4104] 
BRIAN CONNELL (NZ National—Rakaia) 
: 
 National does not accept what has been proposed in Part 1 clause 3 “Rates of income tax for 2002-03 income year”. Despite the golden weather of the last couple of years New Zealand stands at the edge of a cliff economically speaking. We are simply not earning enough to support our level of expenditure. We are languishing in the bottom half of the OECD and the Pinocchios Clark and Cullen deny that they have even had a discussion about setting a target to turn that around. Treasury is predicting growth of around 2 percent for the next decade. The level of Government expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product is just far too high and compliance and red tape are killing business. 
If we are not able to grow our economy we must reduce our expenditure. [ 
Interruption 
] Surely the member who is yelling out understands the connection between the levels of expenditure revenue and taxation. 
Hon David Carter 
: And therefore rates. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: And rates. Every housewife in the country understands the basic budgeting concept that if one cannot earn enough then one must stop spending. But the Government ignores that basic premise. It wants to keep dishing out money to unwitting folk so it keeps paying for them. The damage that does to this country is absolutely sickening. To grow our economy in a sustainable way we must reduce taxation not increase it as that stimulates investment which in turn brings about jobs and prosperity. 
It is a basic construct that if we want to share wealth—and I do not mean just to distribute it—we first have to create that wealth. It might surprise members to learn that only 47 percent of the people in this country are actually earning a living. Yet this Government is hell-bent on tapping them for more and more not just through income tax but through indirect taxes the compliance costs of legislation like the Health and Safety in Employment Act and the Holidays Act which are eroding profits and as people from Rakaia know petrol taxes. 
David Benson-Pope 
: We’re on Part 1. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: The Government whip is yelling out again. When he does that it makes one think that we cannot bring on the legislation dealing with dangerous dogs quickly enough because I would support him being muzzled. 
This Government’s problem is that it has no vision and no coherent growth strategy. Its only answer is to push up taxes and to take more from those who already contribute far too much. If we want our children and their children to call New Zealand their home then we must address that problem. I have lived and worked in economies where if the growth rate got to 4 percent people became pessimistic. Yet we are being conditioned to think that 4 percent is the best that we can do. Well I say “Humbug!” to Michael Cullen and his cronies. If they had not lived in academia for most of their lives they would know how to make a buck rather than just how to spend somebody else’s. 
The Government wants to keep putting up taxes in order to support its welfare expenditure. It might surprise members of the Committee to know that since the 1970s the number of beneficiaries has risen to such an extent that the whole working-age population of beneficiaries would not fit into the city of Christchurch. We have seen a twelvefold increase in the number of beneficiaries yet our population has not even doubled. Every working-age beneficiary in this country at the moment has only four people supporting him or her. We need to address that issue not by putting taxes up but by lowering taxes so that we can stimulate growth.