Moroney Sue: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Moroney Sue: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:4028] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I take this opportunity to speak on Part 2 of the Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill. Labour supports this bill but we do so with a great sense of irony. Part 2 is especially ironic because it is another attack on KiwiSaver. Closing down the mortgage diversion facility and the ability for new participants in KiwiSaver to participate in the mortgage diversion process is another way in which this National Government having already gutted KiwiSaver late last year is trying to attack KiwiSaver and water it down even more. It is just another attack on the ability of New Zealanders to save. We saw in the Budget that was issued yesterday that the Government is saying to people that it does not care about saving for the future so it is going to stop the payments for superannuation. The Government’s attack on savings for the future of this country is relentless. It continues and Part 2 is just another example of that attack. 
Of course National members are grinning from ear to ear and why might that be? They should not have any sense of pride at all in going back on the promises they were elected on which are at the heart of the bill we are debating this morning. National members know that they have got away with a heist. The 1 April tax cuts are the ones that have delivered to National’s people. A third of the taxpayer money from the 1 April tax cuts went back into the pockets of the top 3 percent of earners in this country—the top 3 percent got a third of that money. So in yesterday’s Budget when Bill English was crying his crocodile tears on the inside he was smiling from ear to ear. He knows that the money that should be going into our social services and into those community and voluntary organisations that have been stripped of their partnership funding money is already in the back pockets of the top 3 percent of earners in this country. National has already done the damage with the 1 April tax cuts and it does not need to go any further. So guess what? The tax cuts for the rest of New Zealand—the tax cuts that might have made a difference for ordinary New Zealanders—have been canned. 
I wonder what John Key’s signature is worth these days. I feel really sorry for those people who out of the goodness of their heart have bought at charity auctions things signed by John Key. That signature is now completely worthless because it is on the bottom of a document in which he promised tax cuts that this bill is now putting to rest. His signature is not worth the paper it is written on—that is now very clear. He has not been able to deliver on his personal commitment. His signature on the bottom of the document that says he gives his personal commitment that tax cuts will go ahead in 2010 and 2011 is completely and utterly worthless and that is what we are debating here. 
The National Government is going back on its promises and it is putting our country in a very bad position going forward because of the way in which it has attacked personal savings. Part 2 is yet another attack on the ability of ordinary hard-working everyday New Zealanders to commit to personal savings. Government members are launching yet another attack on KiwiSaver. It is clear that in their hearts they felt that they could not ditch KiwiSaver because they knew it would be unpalatable to the electorate. They went into the election saying that they would not ditch KiwiSaver but they are making it as ineffective as they possibly can. This is plan B: when it is unpalatable to ditch the things that they really wanted to ditch—like KiwiSaver Working for Families and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs—plan B is to make those things as ineffective as possible to completely undermine them and to gut them so that they do not work. Part 2 is yet another example of that approach. 
In Part 2 the Government is attacking New Zealanders who are finding it difficult to make ends meet and to keep up their mortgage payments. How many New Zealanders are in that position today? Has the Government looked to see how many people that will affect in the future? 
Paul Quinn 
: 600. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Clearly Paul Quinn does not care about those 600 people. He does not understand that those 600 people have families and that people rely on them. So those 600 people multiply out and out again. And what about the people who might want to use the mortgage diversion facility going forward?