Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): The member who just resumed his seat Michael Wood is obsessed with pies because he spent most of his speech talking about gristly pies. And I as my girth indicates love a good pie. If he had enjoyed my steak and cheese pie that I got from Pak 'N Save Pētone yesterday—an award-winning steak and cheese pie—he would not be talking so disparagingly about this Government's Budget and in particular this bill.Earlier on in the debate Grant Robertson said something very true—I do not usually say that about Grant Robertson—but he said something very true. He said: The type of Budget that is delivered reflects the type of country that the Government wants it to be." Absolutely—Budgets do reflect Government priorities and what sort of country we want to live in. That is absolutely true about this bill the Taxation (Budget Measures: Family Incomes Package) Bill and the wider Budget.What does it show about what sort of country the National Government wants it to be? First of all it shows that we want this to be a country where all New Zealanders can share in the benefits of growth. After years and years of deficits built up through the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquake peaking at $18 billion at 2011 we now have surpluses and we now have choices. One of the choices the Government has decided to make and this is reflected in the bill is to allow New Zealanders to keep more of their own money. The changes in this bill in addition to the other changes made through regulation will benefit 1.3 million working families by on average $26 per week.The first thing it does is allow New Zealanders to share in the benefits of growth. It is the dividend that New Zealanders get from a growing economy and from a solid economic plan. The second thing this bill says about this Government and this country is that we want to help out those who need it most. That is why the bill's measures are targeted at the bottom end of the income scale. It does not touch the top tax rate of 33c in the dollar. This bill does not touch the 30c in the dollar taxation rate. There are lots of people out in the community who would like us to do that. Those rates are left unaffected. What it does do is it adjusts the bottom two tax brackets by extending the bottom bracket from $1 to $22000 at the 10.5c rate and increasing the rate from $22000 to $52000 for the 17.5c rate. These are changes targeted at the bottom end. In addition to the changes to Working for Families the family tax credit the rest of the bill and the accommodation supplement these are very significant increases for those most in need of support in our community. The third thing this bill says about this Government and the country we want to live in is that where the Government can lift people out of poverty we should and we can. Where we can redistribute resources from New Zealanders to help out those who need it most who are most vulnerable in our community who are facing pressure because of housing stress we can and we should.The numbers show that in the bottom quintile—that is the bottom 20 percent—154000 families will benefit by on average $35 per week. We know that 50000 children living in families receiving less than half the median wage will benefit and be lifted above that threshold—will be lifted above what is sometimes called a child poverty definition. It is one of the things that Jacinda Ardern and other members point to as a definition of child poverty. Well by their own definition this bill and this Budget lift 50000 kids out of poverty. Let us be very clear: the National Government is voting for this bill so is New Zealand First so are the Greens so is ACT so is United Future and so is the Māori Party. The only party this afternoon opposed to lifting kids out of poverty is the Labour Party.The fourth thing this Budget and this bill say about what we want the country to be and how this Government regards New Zealanders is that they create a sense of aspiration and they move further along the line of creating reward for hard work allowing New Zealanders to get ahead under their own steam recognising and rewarding individual initiative. That is why those tax changes at the bottom end are so important.What have we heard in the debate this afternoon in rebuttal? The Labour Party members have made five claims in response. The first claim is that this is a bill that gives only to the rich; that it disproportionally helps those who do not need it: the wealthy. This is a silly argument. As I have just demonstrated this is a bill that is targeted at those who need support the most. You only need to look at the income levels to work this out. Someone who is on $20000 a year faces a drop of 17 percent in the tax they pay. Compare that with someone who is on $100000. They face a drop of 4 percent in the tax that they pay. So of course someone on $100000 gets more money in nominal terms—of course they do; they are earning $100000 or $150000 a year. By definition they get more money but in a proportional sense their tax drops by 4 percent. Someone on $20000 a year faces a real income increase of 17 percent. That is a magnificent increase. That is four times more than someone earning over $100000 a year. We have not touched the top tax rate; we have not even touched the middle-income tax rate. Someone on $20000 a year faces a decrease in their tax of 17 percent so it is just ludicrous to argue that this is a bill that benefits only the rich.The second thing that the Labour Party members say is that this is a bribe. You know it is just so emblematic of the Labour Party's view about Government money to say that this is a bribe. Actually Michael Wood—not in that last speech but earlier on in the debate—talked about the direction of precious Government resources. Actually before they became Government resources they were New Zealanders' resources. It was New Zealanders' money that they had worked for and earned by getting up early in the morning going to work trying to provide for their families and having a job and bringing home money to pay for their kids' education to pay for housing and to pay for some of the nice things in life. So they are not precious Government resources. They are when we take them off New Zealanders and we have got an obligation as a Government to make sure that we spend that money wisely and prudently but they are not Government resources before we take it they are New Zealanders' resources. We want to make sure that New Zealanders keep a little bit more of their own money. You cannot bribe someone with their own money.What else did those members say? They say: "Well this is irresponsible. The money should be spent elsewhere." This is—to be fair to the Labour Party members—a more reasoned critique. They are talking about the allocation of resources and they say it should go on health and education and things like that but the problem with Labour and the Greens is they want to have everything both ways. They want to alleviate poverty in this country they want to solve the housing crisis they want to invest money in mental health and in education—they want to do every single thing. They want to achieve nirvana. If we could achieve nirvana trust me this Government would be creating it. If we could spend billions and billions and billions with absolutely no problems being created from doing so we would do that. The Greens are the worst at this. The Greens are the worst at this. They create this fiction that everything can be solved if we just spent more Government money. That is a legitimate critique but one I reject.The other thing that they say—the fourth thing they say—is that this is a Budget that gives with one hand and it takes with the other. They have been talking away about the tax cuts at the bottom end and the abolition of the independent earner tax credit. Well Michael Wood has discovered the independent earner tax credit; he thinks it is an amazing thing. The Labour Government voted against that when National introduced in 2009—he did a road to Damascus conversion on this one. It is true that our tax system is incredibly complicated. When you pull one thread other threads get dislodged—that is the nature of our complex system of tax credits and the tax system more generally. We want to simplify the tax system and actually the Labour Party agrees with some of those aims. We want to simplify the tax system. This is the Budget and the bill that start doing so by some of the changes to the family tax credit.The fifth thing they say—and this is the most laughable criticism of all—is that this is a political Budget. Well of course it is political. We are in politics. What is this debating chamber if it is not a political theatre? Of course the Budget is political—of course it is. We are in the third term of a Government that is taking New Zealand in the right direction. We are 4 months and 2 days out from the 23 September election. This is a party and a Government that desperately want to be re-elected not for our own sakes—not for our own sakes—but because we fervently believe that New Zealand is heading in the right direction under the careful stewardship of Bill English and Steven Joyce and the rest of the team. We can see New Zealanders being more aspirational about their lives. We can see New Zealand being more confident as a country. We can see our thriving technology and agricultural and tourism and international education sectors. We see a rise in wages and a rise and jobs and this bill will help all of those things. I commend it to the House."