Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to rise and support the Labour Party's amendment that it is tabling because I think it is a very helpful contribution to this debate. Listening to the first and second reading debates last night it is pretty clear that there is consensus right across the House that there are changes to Working for Families that would benefit the people whom this package is designed for. But one thing that we on this side of the House are very uncomfortable with is the changes to the tax thresholds which go well beyond what would have changed if they had just simply kept in line with inflation. If the tax thresholds that were outlined—if those changes—had changed just in line with inflation the quantum of that would come to about $900 million. But in fact there is actually an additional billion dollars on top of that which would have been much better spent not on tax cuts but actually on supporting the Working for Families changes because the quantum of support for people on low incomes—through Working for Families the income tax credit and so on—is so small as Mr Robertson has just pointed out that actually for a lot of people it makes very very little difference at all.So that billion dollars on the additional tax cut that the Government is proposing here is actually largely wasted because so much of it is going to families who are on high incomes rather than on low incomes. It would be much better if we could actually separate out the Working for Families portion of this bill from the tax rates thresholds portion of the bill and to debate those two things separately and to amend the tax section so that it actually simply keeps in line with inflation and retains that additional revenue that is lost through that portion of the existing bill and ploughs that money back into support for those on Working for Families.I am going to go one step further with that because as has been noted in previous portions when we come to the portions of the bill that are the Working for Families section—which is of course clause 6 Calculation of family tax credit" and so on—because it is essentially a wage subsidy it does not apply to people who are on the unemployment benefit. And unfortunately those people by definition are actually the worst-off people in our society—the people who are most excluded by economic circumstance. The bill as presented has absolutely nothing to support those families so we are going to get a huge portion of people there who get next to nothing other than a tiny increase in the accommodation allowance which does not even keep up with house-price and rental inflation over the course of the last few years.Coming back to clause 6 this bill is barely playing catch-up at all so the idea that it is somehow this great advance that is going to miraculously lift thousands and thousands of people out of poverty is a fallacy. In 2013 Working for Families support peaked and has actually been declining and the amount of money that the Government has by stealth withdrawn from Working for Families since 2013 is greater than the quantum of support that is made available in this bill. When people on this side of the House say that the Government gives with one hand and takes away with the other in this case when it comes to the Working for Families calculations here these do not even cover what has been taken away over the course of the last 8 years. It is an absolutely tiny amount of support. It does not go nearly far enough and it is 8 years too late for very many people.I do support the amendment that the Labour Party is going to be introducing. I do think it would be helpful if we were able to separate out those portions of the bill—the Working for Families portions of the bill—from the tax thresholds portion of the bill and be able to debate those separately because that is the crux of the argument of this bill which is essentially that this includes tax cuts for people at the top end who do not need them do not want them and think that that money would be better spent supporting those who are being left behind by the changes in the economy over the last 8 years under this National Government."