Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. Well we learnt a lot tonight. We learnt a great deal in the debates on this bill. We firstly learnt that the Labour Party have dropped any pretence of democracy. They're all socialists. They all stood up one at a time proudly saying I'm a socialist." And why wouldn't they?Chris Bishop: Anna Lorck didn't.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It is—well I wait for the call from Anna Lorck because—Anna Lorck: I'm a socialist!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Wa-hey! Thank you very much. There we go. Indeed why wouldn't they? It's actually on the Labour Party website under their values that they want to educate—this is one of their values: it's "To educate the public in the principles and objectives of democratic socialism" and then "and economic and social cooperation" as if socialism and economic cooperation are one and the same thing.Actually you know we really need to remind ourselves what socialism is. It's the public ownership of the means of production. So what they want to do is nationalise our businesses. It's a long game it's a quiet game—or at least it was a quiet game until tonight; they're singing from the rafters now. That's probably what 52 percent in the polls gets one.Chris Bishop: Anna Lorck owns a small business.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well there we go. Well she should be donating it to the State. I can't believe she hasn't already given it to the State. So there we go. The socialist rhetoric is rising and it will keep going.Well on the other side of the House we actually believe in private property rights. We believe in aspiration in innovation in personal responsibility in getting ahead and in making a good life for one's family to the degree possible independent of unnecessary intervention from the State. That's the difference between two sides of the aisle. Actually we've got the Greens on this side of the aisle—well I think we need a third aisle because what we learnt also tonight was that the Green Party can't make a decision on one of the core principles of Green Party policy and value. They've abstained from this bill. I could not believe my ears: something that will improve the lot of low-income New Zealanders and they abstain. They cannot support it—absolutely outrageous.The third thing we learnt was that under a Labour Government no Kiwi can ever expect tax relief because they give no time to even debating the merits of threshold changes of lowering the top tax rate or of reducing the gap between the income tax rates that most New Zealanders pay 17.5 percent and 30 percent—didn't even want to discuss it and the reason they don't want to discuss it is because of envy. They couldn't possibly allow a tax threshold change that would benefit the vast majority of middle New Zealand because upper-income New Zealanders would also get it. Well that's what a progressive tax system is. It is not possible to give relief to middle-income New Zealanders without giving relief to all New Zealanders. Remember they are meant to be governing for all New Zealand. Why not govern for the small number of people that pay the lion's share of income tax in this country?The next thing we learnt was that the housing crisis has been solved. Remember what Minister Parker said in his second reading speech: he told us the housing problem is solved. No wonder because Grant Robertson told him in the Budget speech. Despite all of the out-of-control inflation in our housing market at the moment which is currently at about 17 percent they're going to magic it down to 0.9 percent—never mind the fact that the foreign buyer ban increasing the brightline test threatening to remove the interest deductibility and a raft of other measures have not done one jot to control house price inflation in this country and probably had the opposite effect. They think they can magic house prices down to 0.9 percent.He also told us that child poverty will decrease as a consequence of this bill. Well if only that were true because they came to Government promising to alleviate child poverty. It's the very core of the ministerial responsibilities of the Prime Minister. But more and more children are becoming poorer and their families are becoming poorer as a consequence of the policies the failed policies of this Government and nothing in this bill and nothing in this Budget is going to change that because it's creating a cycle of dependency that we will take years to break away from.Those are disappointing elements. Those are the really really regretful parts of what we're doing here. We could be passing legislation that is aspirational for New Zealanders that is fostering innovation that is fostering enterprise that is growing jobs. But instead we are increasing the minimum family tax credit because we necessarily increase benefits because the cost of living for the lowest New Zealanders is out of control and they know that that's what is necessary. They've done nothing else in this Budget—nothing that would grow the economy that would reduce our debt that would give our children a reason to stay in this country and that is a very very sad thing. So we will support it but we wish we were supporting much much more positive legislation."