Shearer David: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3837. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):I rise to support Chris Hipkins’ amendment because as he said the current commencement date is not fair. But what I would like to say is that I think it is probably even fairer to push that date as David Clark’s amendment proposes right through to beyond the election so that it is actually an election issue.Let us face it in Budgets gone by with the old Budgets in the past people used to go out in the evening of the day before and fill up their cars with petrol because they thought that the price of petrol was going to go up. This Government has the practice of cutting a clause out of KiwiSaver in every single Budget so that it undermines the very premise on which this scheme is running.Two and a half million people have signed up for KiwiSaver—2.5 million people. It is an outstanding success and why are those people signing up? Well according to the Inland Revenue Department—and the department has done an extensive number of surveys on this—65 percent of the people who sign up for KiwiSaver do so to collect the $1000 kick-start. So now you have just moved that out of the way on top of all of the other cuts that have been made over the years by this Government and what we are seeing is sort of like a chair that has had one leg cut off and has then had another leg cut off. Slowly but surely this Government is wanting to see how long it is going to be before KiwiSaver just completely collapses and falls over and New Zealanders lose confidence in it.If there is one thing that I believe changing the commencement clause will do it is that it will give people the ability to be able to say whether or not they want to keep this kick-start and that would enable them—before the next election according to the amendment that David Clark is putting forward—to make a fair and true decision on whether they want that $1000 or not. I would say that just about everybody of course will want it and they will want it not only for the dollar value that it represents but also for the fact that it represents our continuing to maintain the integrity of a scheme that is important over time.We go into a superannuation scheme—as with this scheme in the past but now people will not have the opportunity to do this any more—on the understanding that there is going to be a nest egg at the end and that the incentives for us to put our money into that scheme for that nest egg are going to be there. But we have had at least six different cuts made to KiwiSaver in the course of this Government. It has cut for example the minimum member contribution—that was in 2009. It has cut the member fee subsidy—that was in April 2009. It has cut the compulsory employer contributions. It has cut the employer tax credit to disincentivise employers to put money into it. It has cut the member—Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I raise this point of order under Speaker’s ruling 114/7. I have been listening to this member for some time. We are on a very narrow commencement clause of this particular bill and this member is straying far from that. He needs to either come back to the commencement date or cease his call.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sorry could you tell me the Speaker’s ruling?Tim Macindoe: It is Speaker’s ruling 114/7. It is the ruling of Rick Barker when he was the Chairperson.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): That is a question of relevance and relevance is a question that is decided by the Chair not by a point of order. I might say though that I had come to that conclusion myself already and probably would have taken it into account as to the length of the debate. I was going to warn the next speaker that we are now talking about the date on which this bill comes into force. It is not a general debate on it.DAVID SHEARER: Just to make that completely relevant all of those cuts that I was talking about happened without warning. They all happened without warning. They all cut a scheme that people had confidence in and that is why it is so important and so fair to ensure that the commencement date is out into the future so that at least people out there can make a decision that is informed that is fair as to whether or not they want to join this scheme. If we do not do that the insidious erosion of confidence in KiwiSaver will continue to occur.That is why I agree in order of priority with David Clark’s amendment and then Chris Hipkins’ amendment. Both of those amendments propose the commencement of this bill in the future rather than having it imposed upon us retrospectively so that people who had been thinking about getting into KiwiSaver toying with the idea of doing it are now no longer able to enjoy the benefits of the $1000 that would have been put into it.This is I believe an undermining of a fabulous scheme. It was put in by the Labour Government. I agree that this Government has taken it and cut it and cut it and cut it. This bill is another example of that cut.