Williams Andrew: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12913. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. Perhaps this Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill would have been better to be called the “Public Finance (Bleeding Obvious Fiscal Responsibility) Bill”—the “Public Finance (Bleeding Obvious Fiscal Responsibility) Bill”. At the end of the day what this bill is doing—and I have looked back through the previous two readings of this bill—is basically just putting into words what should already be happening with this Government.In particular the bill sets out three new principles of responsible fiscal management. It says that the Government should “formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its interaction with monetary policy.” Well surely this is the case anyway. All this is doing is confirming what should already be in place. The second part of the bill says that Governments should ensure that “resources are managed effectively and efficiently.” Well if the Government is not managing our economy and the Government books effectively and efficiently it is not doing its job. So basically again this is only putting into words into the Public Finance Act something that should already be taking place.The third part of the bill says that the Government should “formulate fiscal policy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations.” Well again certainlyyou would expect that any Government of New Zealand whether it be a National Government or a Labour Government or any other form of Government would always be looking at the impact on present and future generations. If they are not doing so if they are thinking only of the short term the myopic what is happening right now looking only at what is happening in terms of the polls looking only at what is happening in terms of their voter response then certainly that is not how this country should be run.In that regard again it is a little bit of a nonsense that we are having to put this legislation through for what is as again I say the bleeding obvious. New Zealand First pointed out in the first reading that we thought this was a bit of an irrelevance that there were 64 other bills on the Order Paper and that other bills had a far higher priority to get on with the business of the Government and of this Parliament. At the time we said we were opposing the bill because we thought it was simply a waste of time. We will now support the bill but when we say that we now support it we support it on the basis that it can do no harm. It can only improve things surely. It can only improve what should hopefully already be happening in the Government. We would hope that as a result of just these extra words amending the Public Finance Act things would be done to an even better standard than should already be happening.But in regard to this perhaps the bill needs to be thought about in a much wider context. Previous speakers have referred to other initiatives that the Government should be looking at. If it is looking at the third purpose of this bill which is that the Government should “formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations” then maybe superannuation should be one that it should really really be looking at.At the present time this Government and many other parties are putting their heads in the sand in relation to superannuation. New Zealand First has come out with a scheme in the last 6 months. It is a pro rata scheme that would see people receive superannuation at 65 years of age but on the basis of how much they contributed over their working lives in New Zealand in the 45 years between the ages of 20 and 65 how long they were here how long they worked for and how long they contributed to this great country of ours New Zealand. If they had been here through that whole period they would be entitled to 100 percent of their superannuation. However if they had spent a considerable amount of time overseas it would be a pro rata amount that they would then receive on retirement in New Zealand but in doing so they could bring retirement funds from offshore from wherever they may have been working or living to help support them here in New Zealand.It means that New Zealanders who have worked all their lives in New Zealand and have contributed here whether it be working for money working for their families working in volunteer situations or whatever they have done in New Zealand get the full payout at 65 and are not subsidising those who just jump on the boat later in life come to New Zealand and then get the full payout as a result of hard-working New Zealanders having contributed to the scheme all their working lives.These are the sorts of things that any Government if it was looking at the Public Finance Act and looking to formulate fiscal policy with regard to the likely impact on present and future generations would be seriously looking at. We certainly hope that that third purpose does see the light of day and that Governments do look along these lines.Similarly my Affordable Healthcare Bill says that seniors withSuperGold cards who are 65 and over should receive a discount and should receive a rebate if they continue private health insurance after they retire to assist them to retain their health insurance. Again that would mean that far fewer of our seniors would drop their health insurancedrop out of the private health system and suddenly go into full 100 percent dependence on the public health system which would then load up our public health system to a higher level. With an ageing population we need to be looking at this far more. We need to be working out how we can keep people who may have had private health insurance on those private health insurance schemes.Similarly my Affordable Healthcare Bill talks about taking fringe benefit tax off companies’ contributions to health insurance. Why should companies have to pay fringe benefit tax to help provide for health insurance which reduces the impact and the burden on the public health system? Again we should be looking at all these wider-picture ideas as to how we can help the New Zealand economy how we can be more fiscally responsible and how we can make the New Zealand taxpayer’s dollar go further on behalf of the 4.5 million people who live here.New Zealand First will support this basically administrative bill—it is very much a technical bill—but we would say again to the Government that again this is tinkering around the edges. This is taking the deckchairs on theTitanic and just shuffling them around so that the window dressing looks a bit better but at the end of the day this bill does not do a huge amount. Get down to basics. Get down to finding ways to create more employment and regional economic development improving the opportunities for our young in this country and helping New Zealand grow this country not just tinker around the edges with minor little administrative bills such as this.