Mallard Trevor: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Mallard Trevor: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:127] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I congratulate the previous speaker John Boscawen on taking the opportunity to make a speech on this occasion and I say that that is about all I agree with him on. 
I repeat one of the comments I made to Sir Roger Douglas last night—that is that I am very very surprised that the ACT Party is supporting a bill that increases tax for quite a large group of people. More than that it introduces a big area of inefficiency and bureaucracy in the sense that the credits involved will require an army of bureaucrats to implement. It complicates the tax system much more than is necessary and it increases the top marginal tax rate for a very large group of people. 
The very thing that Sir Roger Douglas told us was most important as far as tax rates are concerned was the top marginal tax rate and here we have ACT making the top marginal rate higher for a large group of New Zealanders. ACT members are removing or reducing the very incentives that they tell us are so important. 
I will also make a comment or two to the Maori Party. I thank those members for not taking their call and for giving the Labour Party an extra call again. I say to Mr Flavell that we remember. We remember seeing Maori Party MPs going around the country and saying that they wanted a tax-free area up to $25000. That was their policy: nil tax to $25000. You know one would think that if that was their policy then their minimum position would be that every tax change heads in that direction. But what do they do? They vote for a bill that puts tax up for low-income people. And who are those people? They are much much more likely to be Maori proportionately than Pakeha. 
The Maori Party members are putting tax up especially for people who have families people who have a couple of low incomes and have kids and people who are struggling on incomes in the $20000s and the low $30000s. They are the group of people whom the Maori Party was kind enough to support in terms of Working for Families and now they are the ones who are being punished by the Maori Party because it is following blindly behind National. 
What is Mr Flavell going to say to that family whose dad earns $33000 and whose mum earns $22000 in a bit more than a part-time job who have a couple of kids and who are in KiwiSaver? Does the member know how much their net income will go down? Between $60 and $70 a week. Those people will have $60 or $70 a week less under the National-Act-Maori Government as it was described. 
I say to Mr Flavell that I want to come on to the marae with him as well. Not only does Mr Ririnui want to do that but I want to be there as well. I want to hear him explain how it is mana-enhancing to take $60 or $70 a week off some of the poorest Maori families in New Zealand—$60 or $70 a week from some of the poorer families compared with what the law says they would get now in 2011. [ 
Interruption 
] What is now clear is that the junior Government whip also does not understand the difference between what is in the law now and what is being worked through. 
Chris Tremain 
: You detail it for me then. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We will. We will work throughout today we will work throughout tomorrow and for the next 3 years we will work our way around the poorer communities of New Zealand. We will show them what will happen because of the rise in the thresholds between the package that has already been legislated for by the previous Labour Government and this Government’s legislation. Although some of the marginal rates are coming down the lift in the threshold hits the poorest people in New Zealand. It hits the poorest workers in New Zealand and it hits not only those who are working. 
I give members the example of the older family—a couple on superannuation. They have done the right thing they have saved up and they have a small income that is coming in as a result of their savings. What happens to them? Their tax goes up. Their tax goes up under the National Government. 
I know that National appealed heavily to superannuitants but what will happen under this legislation is that the tax on people who have an income of $20000 as a result of the amounts they have saved over and above their superannuation will go up. They might have that income coming from another superannuation plan but as a result of this legislation their tax will go up. Notwithstanding the small increase those people will get in their national superannuation their total income will go down. And the National members sound like they are proud of it. 
I will tell members something—Paul Quinn did not go and tell people at the Grey Power meetings that if they had some savings then their net income would go down. He did not tell them that. I am not sure whether he knew. He did know; he is putting up his hand to indicate that he did know. Well in that case it is very very sad that he misled the Grey Power people at the meetings he went to in Lower Hutt and Wainuiomata. 
I will get back to the Maori Party in particular and to something that those members and John Key had in common during the election campaign. That was around the relative attractiveness of New Zealand and Australia. One of the very good things that the previous Government negotiated was an arrangement for portability of superannuation back and forth. One of the reasons for that I say to Mr Flavell was so that whanau could bring their superannuation from Australia back to New Zealand and so that some of the higher-income earners who were living in Australia and wanted to come back to New Zealand would not lose their superannuation as a result of coming back. It was something to bring families together to bring whanau back to bring leadership back into communities in New Zealand and to allow some of the older people to get a piece of the pie by keeping the superannuation that they had earned in Australia. What has Mr Flavell has done? He is voting for the gutting of the KiwiSaver arrangements which will result in that portability being lost. 
Were Government members polite enough to ring the Australian Government to get on the phone to Mr Rudd—John to Kevin—and tell the Australian Government that they were walking away from the superannuation portability? Did they do that? No. They did not even think of it. So what do we have here? We have legislation that removes the incentives to do research and wrecks the portability of superannuation. We have legislation that increases the marginal tax rate for some poor and middle-income people and increases the taxes paid by a significant group of people who have kids and have joined KiwiSaver. It is just not fair and we are going to fight it right through.