Tremain Chris: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Tremain Chris: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
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CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 On one of the most important days for New Zealand this year we hear a fictional play written by Mr Stuart Nash. If he thinks he will win back Napier he can dream on. 
We should be focusing on the facts and I want to tell members about a fact that will appear in the headlines tonight in the Television One and TV3 news. It is the Standard and Poor’s announcement: “International credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s has cast a favourable verdict”—not a negative verdict but a favourable verdict—“on the Budget upgrading New Zealand’s outlook from negative to [positive].” That is a fact. Standard and Poor’s one of the most important credit rating agencies in the world has said that it is putting a positive outlook on our Budget as a result of what was delivered today. There is nothing fictional about that. No fictional playwriting is going on in that regard. 
Craig Foss 
: It was negative when Labour was in; it’s positive now. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: Exactly. When Labour was in office we had a negative outlook. Now that National is in office we have a positive outlook and that has to be good for New Zealand. What does it mean? Let me make just a couple of quick points. It means $600 million in savings on interest rates alone. As a result of that improvement in our rating we have delivered $600 million into the back pockets of Kiwis through not having increased interest rates. That is a fantastic outcome. What is even better though if we put that aside for a moment is that it will allow the arteries of finance to stay open. The veins of finance will continue— 
Stuart Nash 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. On Mr Tremain’s facts he knows that 75 percent of people in Napier earn under— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member will sit down. That is not a point of order; it is a debating point. The member cannot bring in that sort of material on a point of order. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: It will keep the arteries of finance open and it will allow businesses to stay operational. They will be able to continue to borrow and we will be able to get on the path to recovery. That is what has happened. 
Another fact from Standard and Poor’s will end up on the news tonight. It said today that the Budget delivered a sound outlook. That is high praise. Just a few minutes after Bill English had delivered his Budget we received the following high praise from Standard and Poor’s: “The change in the outlook on the … rating reflects our view that the measures announced in today’s budget will support stabilisation in the government’s fiscal position over the medium term.” If that is not positive I do not know what is. Here we are in one of the biggest recessions of the last 60 years and the Government has delivered a Budget that has put us on a pathway to a strong recovery. It is absolutely fantastic. 
What did we see from the Opposition today apart from the fictional play that we had before? We saw “Visa-nomics”. We saw Mr Phil Goff—“Whack-it-on-the-bill-Phil”—recklessly say in the House today that we should keep on spending. He said that we should keep on increasing our debt and putting ourselves in a position whereby our kids will have to pick up that debt down the track. It was absolutely crazy. Delivering that sort of Budget would burden Kiwis with an immediate downgrade. But it is not that we heard anything of any note from Phil Goff apart from increasing expenditure. Did we hear anything about what he would change in order to deliver that? No we did not. He just talked about more debt—“Whack-it-on-the-bill-Phil”. It was all about putting more on the Visa card and burdening Kiwis with more debt. 
What we heard from National was a reflection of where the real economy is. The really important thing is that out there in New Zealand businesses are doing it tough. They are going through their profit and loss statements line by line looking to see how they can take expenses out of their budget so that they can remain in business. It is not so that they can make a profit; many businesses out there are trying to keep afloat and they are going through their budgets line by line to do that. There are people out there who have recently lost their jobs or who are facing the prospect of losing their jobs. They are not faced with a situation where they can be fiscally prudent; they have to be tough and go through their budgets line by line. That is what this Government has done. It has gone through the Budget line by line and taken out as many expenses as it can. It has provided a Budget that will take us forward which is fantastic. 
On the other hand “Whack-it-on-the-bill-Phil” thinks we can just keep on spending and racking up debt—spend spend spend and the debt grows. National members understand the position the economy is in and we have had to make some tough calls. Whether or not members opposite like it when New Zealand is in a situation like this the Government has to make tough calls and we have done that. At the time of the election when we made our initial call about tax cuts we made some tough calls in order to afford tax cuts based on the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update delivered to us at that point in time. At that time we made some calls about research and development tax credits and KiwiSaver. Once again in this Budget we have made some tough calls about what we have to do and one of those tough calls has been to stop the second and third tranches of the tax cuts. That is something we have to do in this economic environment. 
Mr Ross Robertson asked us before about what the future was under this Budget. It has given us a debt track that is rising but will then go down. It has given our kids a strong outlook for the future. Today we are in the position of having to hit the tax cuts on the nose with this tax bill so that we can go forward and Standard and Poor’s has delivered us a fantastic result because of it.