Williamson Maurice: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Williamson Maurice: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9453] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 It is usual for members of Parliament to have quite a bit of feedback sent to our electorate offices the morning after a Budget. When there are things in the Budget that are good members will often hear people saying it was great that they happened. I can report immediately to the Chamber that the feedback I have received from the people of Howick and Pakuranga is that of sheer outrage. They have never had access to a rail network and never will have. Even those who are quite green in their feelings and would love to use a rail network if they could simply do not have one. They simply do not have one. 
It is really interesting. Outside my electorate office is the Pakuranga Highway—a three-lane highway—and in the mornings I look out to see cars just locked blocked and stopped as far as the eye can see. Guess what? Yesterday Dr Cullen said to those people that he would charge them another 10c a litre on their petrol tax in order to pay for the electrification of a rail network somewhere on the other side of the city. 
That went down like a cup of cold sick with the people of Howick and Pakuranga and I bet it was the same with the voters of the North Shore Northcote Murray McCully’s East Coast Bays and Judith Collins’ area of Clevedon Beachlands and Maraetai. People in those Auckland regions will be saying to the Government: “Excuse me? You are going to tax me to pay for the electrification of a rail network that I don’t have any access to at all even if I want access to it?”. That is what the feedback from those people has been. 
I have to speak on behalf of what may end up being a new constituency block for me. I may with boundary changes end up with some people from the Glen Innes and Point England areas. I have not had contact with those people yet because the boundaries may not be changed but they may end up in my constituency. I understand that those people are mainly Labour voters but I can tell the Labour Government that they will be pretty angry about what happened yesterday as well. 
I know for a fact from the levels of household debt being accumulated by people in areas like that that they do not have one cent of spare discretionary income each week to put into anything. What with hire purchase payments their budget does not exist. Their budget is blown to pieces each week and they struggle from day to day to make ends meet. If not they are accumulating debt on their credit cards. Often we hear people in Glen Innes say they have maxed out on their credit cards. These are the people whom Dr Cullen should be representing. They are not the people whom the Tory party would normally be out there speaking on behalf of. That is why this Budget will not go down well with Labour voters. 
Dr Cullen says to those people who do not have a cent of discretionary expenditure that if they save some money each week then they will get into this KiwiSaver scheme and the Government and the employers will put some money in and that will be good for them. I can tell members now that if Trevor Mallard wants to come with me and wander the streets of Glen Innes or Point England the very first response he will get from those people will be: “How the bloody hell do I save anything when I can’t save already?”. They will ask how they can save a cent how they can have money taken off their pay and put into a KiwiSaver account. 
A lot of people in my current patch of Howick and Pakuranga will say they have enough discretionary spending to put 4 percent of their pay into the scheme. They are in the wealthier higher-income end and they will say they are OK with this. They will say that they can do with this scheme and that it is fine—they will provide 4 percent of their pay and their employers and the Government will tip in some money. They will say that it is not a bad idea. But what about the people at the bottom end of the spectrum whom the Labour Government is supposed to be an advocate for? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What about the workers? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Absolutely; Trevor Mallard has called the question right. There we are “Stadium Boy” has made the right call for once; “Stadium Boy” has it right. What about the workers? Well the workers have been shafted even more than Auckland was over the stadium—and boy that was the biggest shafting I have ever seen. The workers are being absolutely shafted. Any of the workers who are listening out there all those people who are sitting out in the workshops of the South Auckland factories now hanging on every word that Parliament is broadcasting into those factories—and there will be thousands of them—will be asking: “Hang on why is Trevor Mallard yelling out ‘What about the workers?’ when what he did yesterday shafted those of us at the low end?”. 
That is what KiwiSaver is: it is a nice little welfare benefit for those on a high income or those with a bit of discretionary expenditure or a few bob that they can put away and it is an absolute kick in the guts for people down at the bottom end. That is the point National is trying to make. This Budget is best typified by the old Joe Hill days of the trade unions. “Pie in the sky when you die”—that is what people will get.