Woods Megan: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2479. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill. As my colleagues have said we are happy to support this because this was legislation that was wrong from the outset. This was legislation that did not do anything to encourage tertiary education in this country. This was legislation that did nothing to improve us and lead us on the path to being an economy that was truly based on legislation. We see this as one small beacon of light in this legislation that we are debating this morning—this very important legislation that we have come back under urgency to debate which is about how we are going to fix our great nation. 
We are talking about the scrapping of a half-baked scheme that was doomed to fail. We are doing a fix-up here but we are not seeing any great vision from National in this Budget to actually do anything to encourage education and the creation of an economy that is truly based on innovation. Instead what we are seeing is some money put into the front end of science while we are treating the back end—the people our greatest resource in terms of innovation—as an extractive industry. 
Apparently what we do not want in this country now is postgraduate research. This is something that is not going to be encouraged. Actually what we are going to do is set up a student allowance scheme that explicitly rules out doing that. We would not want to be educating the masses too much! That might lead to actually raising incomes creating more jobs and getting an economy that works! 
Louise Upston 
: You missed the fact that we’re putting more money into the PBRS scheme. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: I have not missed the purpose of this bill because what we are doing here is playing fix-up on legislation that was wrong-sighted that was wrong from the outset. We will be back here soon playing fix-up on other legislation being introduced from this Budget that is going to do nothing to improve this country.  
 This is a half-baked bill. It is a total failure. I do note that the member opposite Louise Upston talked lyrically at the time of the bill’s introduction about what a great piece of legislation this was. I am looking forward to her call on why it is that we need to get rid of it now. We are back here only 3 short years after it was introduced so how long will it be until we are back here having to play fix-up on the other short-sighted measures that we are seeing in Budget 2012 from the National Government? 
Dr David Clark 
: They don’t even care. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: Will we be back giving the money back to the paper boys? You are quite right there David Clark. Will we be back saying that we are actually killing innovation in this country we are not backing our young people and we are doing nothing to create a brighter future? In fact all we are doing is filling Air New Zealand’s planes over to the Gold Coast. There is nothing in this Budget to keep people here. This is too little too late—a U-turn on what was a mistake 3 years ago. It does nothing to fix our economy. Thank you.