Douglas Roger: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Douglas Roger: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 May 2010. Volume:663;Page:11137. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) 
: 
 It does not matter what side of the Chamber one is on the fact is that this Budget to date has gone down particularly well. The next point I make to the Labour Opposition is that there are sound grounds to criticise this Budget but when members opposite are using any story at all to criticise it then they do not do themselves any good. Let us take Grant Robinson. He suggested— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Robertson! 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS 
: Robertson sorry my apologies. He made the point that this Budget was not doing enough in the area of redistribution and wanted more of the sorts of policies that the previous Labour Government followed over the last 9 years. I remind the member that during that period of time New Zealand workers probably lost relative to Australian workers about $100 in wages. Our wages over the last 30 or 40 years relative to Australian wages have dropped by $300 to $400 in relative terms. It is about time we had policy to deal with that. 
The only Opposition speaker I have heard come close to criticising this Budget on a sound basis was David Parker. I thought he made some points we should take up. He pointed to the risks that relate to the high level of overseas borrowing that New Zealand has already and the fact that it will expand and I thought that was a criticism worth making. 
I think the Minister in the chair Peter Dunne and the Minister of Finance given what they have proposed have done a pretty good job on the tax package. I personally have some problem with it. I believe that the 12.5 percent tax rate should not have gone down to 10.5 percent. I think they should have rounded the rates to 30 percent rather than having the discrepancy that they will have with 28 percent for companies and 33 percent for the personal tax rate. I think the Minister in the chair if he could have done that may well have wanted to do that. 
My main criticism however is in the area of GST. I do not believe it was necessary to raise GST. It would have meant of course that the Government would have had to make some tough decisions in the expenditure field. But if we look through the Budget there is about $2.5 billion there that I would classify as corporate welfare—a lot of it unnecessary. That is about double the net benefit from GST. If we look at Government expenditure this Budget is providing for a 9 percent increase in Government spending. It is just about as bad as Labour used to do during its time in office. Frankly 9 percent increases in Government expenditure year on year are totally unsustainable. We have seen Government expenditure increase by approximately $6 billion or 9 percent and that is four times the rate of inflation. 
I grant that the Minister would probably point out to me that 2 percent of that 9 percent is compensation for GST and I accept that but it is still an increase in Government expenditure at three times the rate of inflation. Had we not had to increase GST instead of someone on $40000 getting $10 a week that person would have received $23 a week and instead of a $500 benefit he or she would have received a $1300 benefit a year. Instead of someone on $52000 receiving $745 a year that person would have received over $1600 in benefit—in other words a $31 benefit per week rather than $14. But the die has been cast. I think in future the Government will have to pay a lot more attention to Government expenditure particularly the Government expenditure that is not returning to the nation as much as it would have returned had it been left in the private sector.