Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well thank you Madam Speaker. It is my pleasure to speak on the Income Insurance Scheme (Enabling Development) Bill introduced by this Government. So for those tuning in we're in the Budget debate—no not the Budget debate; the debate following the Budget. The Budget was dropped yesterday by Grant Robertson and there were all sorts of talk and announcements about how he was going to spend this and he was going to spend that and how wonderful he is. He didn't really emphasise during his Budget speech that we were also planning to introduce a new tax—a new jobs tax. That didn't feature particularly in his speech.But the day after the Budget here we are in the House talking about legislation paving the way—a bill in order to prepare for another bill which is pointing towards a new tax that New Zealanders will have to pay. And in politics like in many elements of life timing is everything. When you think about this Budget well the plan at the start of the year when Minister Robertson outlined his Budget Policy Statement was for the Budget to focus on climate change and the restructuring of the health system. That was the plan. And then a little bit before the Budget they woke up to the fact that Hang on a moment. Maybe we might have miscued here. Maybe it's possible that the issue that New Zealanders are actually interested in—more than anything right now—is the cost-of-living crisis and the fact that New Zealand households are struggling to go forwards."In fact they're going backwards because the cost of everything is up faster than their wages. People are struggling. They're going backwards. They're being squeezed by that cost-of-living crisis. So they thought "Heck. We're a bit off whack here. We've got to come up with something. We've got to cook up something." But he'd already spent the $6 billion the record amount of money available for new spending. He'd blown that all and so he had to reach for all the other cookie jars and find some more money in order to pay for the cost of living additional little payments for a short period of time in order to look like he was responding to the cost of living crisis. Then the next day we discover that if you're lucky enough to be in receipt of this $350 for three months from this Government the bad news is if you're on the average wage you're also going to be losing $1000 a year to pay for this new income insurance scheme. So what he didn't emphasise was "We'll give you 350 bucks if you're lucky for a short time a one-off; but by the way for the rest of your life you'll be paying an extra 1000 bucks a year. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen." And not surprisingly people are waking up and thinking "Well that's a bad deal. That sucks. We're going backwards."That's the theme of this Government and this Budget—the "backwards Budget"—because every household is going backwards. So the timing is off when it comes to this question of the job tax which this legislation is paving the way for. It takes more money out of the pockets of New Zealanders at a time when they're facing more cost-of-living pressures than ever when the price of cheese is going up and when the price of petrol is going up. Diesel is going crazy. Everywhere you look the prices are going up. Rents are going up through the roof in no small measure because of the actions of this Government adding cost to the structure. So prices are going up and at that moment they think it's a good time to bring in a new tax that every worker has to pay and every employer has to pay.Secondly it's a terrible time to be bringing in more costs that small businesses have to pay because as well as employers having to pay this new levy which is being proposed at 1.4 percent employers also have to pay an additional 1.4 percent of the payroll as well. And that comes on top of all the additional costs that this Government has piled on to the struggling backs and shoulders of the small-business operators in New Zealand—as well as extending huge increases in the minimum wage extra sick leave extra entitlements and extra public holidays. These all sound very nice in theory but when you add them all up they add to the cost structure of New Zealand business which inevitably—and they don't like to admit this; they hate to admit this. Michael Wood gets very angry when he has to engage in this discussion but the idea that if you pile additional costs onto businesses some of those additional costs may flow through to the prices that people have to pay for things in the supermarket and everywhere else. That sort of idea they hate to admit it but it's true. And that's what we're seeing in this country and it's one of the things that is driving the increases in costs—not the only thing but it's one of the things that is driving the increases of cost.So right here right now when all of those small businesses are struggling financially—they're struggling in a whole lot of other ways: they're struggling from a law and order front; they're struggling because many retail businesses are waking up turning up and finding that their windows have been smashed in because there's been a breakdown of law and order in this country. But I won't get too far off topic on that. They're struggling because of the additional costs being imposed and this Government says "Right now it's a good time to add another one and we're going to bring in an income insurance scheme which is going to cost about $3.5 billion according to Treasury." I don't believe that for a moment. It would be much more than that. This is just the start. These things have what's called mission creep. You come in with a suggestion around an insurance scheme for redundancy—by the way there's a private-sector solution for that now; people can go out and buy that insurance and a lot of New Zealanders do. So the Government doesn't think that that's a good idea. Everything has to be run by the Government of course. "It's only good if it's run from Wellington" is their approach. By the way people can do this; there's nothing stopping anybody buying insurance for income insurance or sickness insurance and a lot of New Zealanders do. So they're going to bring that in and then already it's expanded from redundancy insurance to sickness insurance and it'll expand further no doubt if they were given a chance. And the cost won't be $3.5 billion a year; it'll be $4.7 billion or as somebody's already predicting it will be more than that.This is just another slice of costs to the structure that New Zealanders have to deal with. You might say "Well that might be justified if there was a reduction in costs elsewhere in the welfare system or anything like that." But you can rest assured there won't be if this Government was in charge because their solution to every problem is for Grant Robertson to just write another cheque and throw some money out with no focus on what we're actually getting for the money—because he's addicted to spending. And we all know that. We all know that they're addicted to making announcements about spending without thinking through how it's going work in practice. That's why this bill is very poorly timed; it's preparing the way for another jobs tax—something that this Government promised not to do: to bring in more taxes. And here we go.We're finding that when you see a Budget that's coming down the track with incredible amounts of new spending all New Zealanders know that inevitably somewhere down the line the bill is going to be sent. And the bill is going to be sent in higher taxes. This Government is sneaky about how it does it. It sneaks in the higher taxes through inflation. It uses inflation to push more incomes into higher tax brackets. It loves that and that's why there's so much more income tax revenue. Now it's sneaking in another tax—this income insurance scheme levy—taking $1000 a year out of the pockets of New Zealanders on the average wage. And they'll be saying to themselves "Oh I thought I was going to be 350 bucks better off." In fact you won't be if you're on the average wage; you won't get a cent but if you're below $70000 you might get 350 bucks but "Oompha I'm going to lose 1000 bucks at the same time. It's not a one-off 1000 bucks; it's year in year out I'm going backwards." And this is part of the "backwards" Budget for 2022 and that's why we oppose it."