Woolerton R Doug: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9435] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 Following that speech—and I regard Craig Foss as a friend on a personal basis I would like to think—I tell a lot of my other friends in the National Party and I have just as many in the Labour Party as everybody knows in case people think there is a change of allegiance here to not let the moneylenders and money boys take over their party. Average people do not deal on the stock market. Average people are not experts in shifting money around. Average people do not go to the financial pages of the newspaper every day. I know Mr Foss and I go to him for advice. I regard him as an expert. I talk to Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and respect him. But do not degrade or be nasty to the people who do not have the level of expertise of those members because this bill evens out the situation. Lots of people are happy to invest just some part of their income in a fund that is managed by somebody else and many people prefer to do that. I am actually one of them. I would like to think that one day I will get the time to mess around with money and shift a bit of it around different companies but at the present time I do not want to do that. I want somebody to do it for me. 
Bob Clarkson 
: I’ll do it. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Bob Clarkson will do it for me and I could probably do worse than give him a couple of bob to look after for me I admit that. But I prefer to give it to AMP AXA New Zealand the Tower Group or somebody like that and this is what this scheme is about. Firstly the Government has to get the tax rate that those companies are charged down to a reasonable level and this bill we are talking about now goes further and does it for other entities. I applaud that. It helps the average person or the person at the lower end whom National would like to talk about get a tax rate that only the elite perhaps enjoyed previously and it allows those people who want to invest through entities and who want to join up to KiwiSaver to have an avenue for doing so. They do not have to go to a stockbroker they do not have to go to the bank manager they do not have to learn about the vagaries of the financial markets they can put the money away and basically forget about it. 
We know that all is not without risk and in the depths of this bill is some attempt and I applaud the Government for it to get the huge costs that these companies have previously charged down to a reasonable rate. I applaud that as well. But this legislation is not about people who want to invest in the stock market it is about saving to the degree that one wants. The Government has recognised that it is hard for people who do not earn a lot and it has stepped in to make sure that that can happen. It saddens me because those who are very financially literate in the National Party are deliberately saying that this is a wage cut for the lowly paid when they know—because they are financially literate and I would like to think they are responsible enough to say—that money going into the bank in the form of saving is just as important or more important as a wage. Because this is a wage increase that the Government is happy to help people with. 
Sure one cannot use it until one is 65 but it is putting money away which is very important and people on lower wages have never ever ever been able to do that during their lives. They do not have the expertise of Mr Tremain. They do not have the expertise of Mr Foss Mr Bennett or God bless us all Bob Clarkson whom we recognise as having particular expertise in making money. I would liked to think that Mr Clarkson who is known for his largesse would have ensured that his employees had something like this given to them by him of his own free will— 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Did he? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: —because he talks about all these things. And the question my colleague Damien O’Connor asks is “Did he?”. I think we can safely assume the answer to that is “No”. So we have had to come to this House to ensure that the Government is going to look after those people at the lower end and give them some certainty for the future. This bill does that. Will the Government do another “Muldoon”? That is the critical question as we go into the next election and as we go into the future. I tell Mr O’Connor that I do not think it will do a “Muldoon” because it knows that it cannot do that twice in living memory. The Government cannot raid people’s futures twice in living memory. 
I was in the National Party in the Muldoon years. I know what happened. I was in the hierarchy and had been so for many years so I know what Muldoon did and I know what people in the National Party thought of it. I can tell Mr O’Connor that the people in the National Party will in no way allow the present-day National Party to get rid of this scheme. They will not. So I can tell members just about with certainty that this scheme will remain even under a National Government whenever that may be in the future and many of these members may not be here at that point. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: With a money trader for a leader! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Even with a money trader for a leader there are still at this point more people who do real things rather than money trading in the National Party and I am encouraging them to take up positions in the National Party and not to leave it all to the money traders. 
Dr Cullen was quite right when he said to Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith that we in this place—every one of us—are on a scheme such as is being offered through KiwiSaver; only ours is better. Our scheme is two for one. For every $1 we put in we get $2 put into our savings. Now we regard that as part of our salary. When I see articles written in the newspapers about parliamentary perks and all those sorts of things that is— 
Hon Member 
: Baubles! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: —baubles exactly and that is uppermost amongst them. We regard that as a very very good scheme. I know very financially literate members in this place who do not subscribe to a recognised scheme such as AMP the Tower Group AXA or whatever; they have designed their own and that is allowed too. But these are people at the top end. Now Dr Cullen and this Government with New Zealand First support is trying to extend these great benefits down to people who have hitherto never been able to have them. I think that that is an indictment and I would like to think that people with the ability to spread their largesse around like Bob Clarkson would have been able to do that for their workers. 
But I think and I am pretty sure that the National Party will not get rid of these schemes. It will certainly not put the tax rate back up for companies but maybe it will. But I do not think it will. It will certainly not allow the tax rate to go back for providers. It will certainly not allow companies such as AXA the Tower Group and what not to have their tax rates put back up. But in fact today sadly National members are talking about opposing this bill—and they are—and talking about lower salary earners getting less income. They know that that is not correct.