Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11101] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 For those who do not know the member who just resumed her seat was Jacqui Dean. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I didn’t know. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Mr Mallard did not know. She is a member who is famous for two things. First she is the member who thought that one should ban water. Secondly she is the member who during a public meeting with my colleague David Parker showed that her in-depth knowledge of economics rivals that of Aaron Gilmore. She said: “No we’re not going to borrow money. We’re going to get it from overseas.” 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Who said that? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It was an economic theorist rivalling Aaron Gilmore. 
Let me say that it has been an interesting day today. This is a very prophetic day because on this day Mark Bryers the biggest crook in the Blue Chip scam got 75 hours’ community service. On the same day that Mark Bryers the biggest crook in the Blue Chip scam got 75 hours’ community service—he is a very wealthy man a multimillionaire—the National Government gave him a $1000 a week tax cut. In fact it would be more than that because he earns well over $1 million per year and we know that under this Budget if one earns $1 million per year one gets a $1000 tax cut. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: A week. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am sorry: it is a $1000 tax cut per week. Mr Bryers thanks to Mr Key will get that. I am sure Mr Bryers will send Mr Key a nice Christmas card saying: “Thanks very much. I have done my 75 hours’ community service.” There were tears in court today according to the media but Mr Key was good enough to give him 1000 bucks a week. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And there’ll be a pensioner who will deliver the card. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague Mr Mallard said that a pensioner who was ripped off will deliver the card to Mr Key. It is a very very prophetic day today. Mr Bryers will have a lot to celebrate tonight as he contemplates his whole 75 hours of community service. 
Let us look at the Budget. What do we have? We have inflation. We have the highest inflation I believe since 1990—5.9 percent. I really enjoyed the Maori Party contribution especially the contribution of Tariana Turia. I said that she had sold out her electorate and a number of other members have said the same thing. Well those members are very proud of this Budget. I ask them how proud they can be when 72 percent of the constituents in Rahui Katene’s electorate earn under $40000 per year and when we factor in the increases in GST and inflation 72 percent of her electorate are going to be worse off. I say to Tariana Turia—and I am sure that she will take another call to try to justify this—that 73 percent of her electorate earns under $40000 and will be worse off when we factor in the increase in GST and a 5.9 percent inflation rate. 
Ms Dean and others have said that it is fantastic that people who earn $70000-plus will get a tax rate of 33 percent. Well here is the problem with that for the Maori Party which signed up to it today. In Ms Katene’s electorate the number of people who earn over $70000 equates to 5 percent—5 percent. In Mrs Turia’s electorate it is even worse; there they equate to 3 percent. So I say: “Well done!” to the Maori Party. Those members have done a wonderful job of getting gains in this Budget for their electorate because what they have got is some hocus-pocus and a couple of prisons which Pita Sharples has put on the deck tonight and which Judith Collins could not explain to the media and they have sold out 72 to 73 percent of their constituents. I invite them—the weekend warriors that they are—to get up in this House and justify that to their constituents. If they are so proud of this Budget then it will be very interesting during the hui on the campaign trail when their constituents get up and say to Ms Katene that they are part of the 73 percent who missed out and that she and her colleagues inside and outside Cabinet voted for this move never opposed it and ripped them off. That is what those constituents will say to the Maori Party. I do not know whether it is mana-enhancing when 73 percent of one’s electorate is worse off thanks to one’s vote and thanks to the fact that one is so proud of this legislation and this Budget. 
Then we come to the other aspect of this Budget: the broken promise about the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Mr English had a history of breaking promises to our superannuitants when he was last in Government in the 1990s when under him their pension was cut three times. Last year he said: “Oh well we will suspend payments to the Cullen fund but when we get into surplus”—and the Budget documents show that allegedly that will be in 2016—“we will activate funding again.” Oh no that date is now 2019. 
National members and their leader went around the country with the second broken promise which was that they would not raise GST. I invite them to front up on a Saturday if they ever hold electorate clinics if they ever get off their backsides and go and talk to the 73 percent of the people in some electorates like the Maori electorates who are affected if they ever meet those folks who are worse off as we speak tonight. I invite them to go to Grey Power and explain why their leader broke that promise. Every last member opposite got his or her backside over the line in the vote and was elected on two false promises. 
Mr Gilmore should get off his chuff go to Grey Power members and explain to them why he broke his promise. They will not know who he is of course but he might get in the door. I am sure they would invite him in and he could justify the pay he gets by explaining to them why his leader said that he would not put up GST why Mr English said that he would not mess with superannuation and why Mr English said that he would pre-fund superannuation when the Government accounts moved into surplus. It is the same with Nicky Wagner. But we will never see them fronting when it is bad news. They stand up in here but none of them will front up out there. Well I challenge them. Let us have a meeting. Let us get every person in their electorate let us get 10 of them five of them three of them. Let us get Mr Gilmore who does not have a patch of course to talk to everyone in the area where he lives who is on the average wage. After we factor in National’s broken promise on GST and factor in record inflation of 5.9 percent let us hear Mr Gilmore explain to them why National has ripped them off and why they are worse off. They are the battlers the strugglers and the people who are trying to provide for their families. 
I remember polls about Budgets too—rolling out the 80 percent. Well I have always held the view as a member of Parliament that people are not stupid. I know this about Budgets: the Government might win on the night when the flashbulbs are flashing and certain people are tripping over camera cords but as the days go on and the pay packets are opened and the GST receipts are added up at the end of the week the people are not silly and it is very dumb and stupid politicians in this House who think they can hoodwink the ordinary folk in the street. I say to them that it is a simple equation: get up and explain why the Government will borrow $240 million per week for the next 3 years and get up and explain why the debt track and the interest costs do not start even declining until 2021. If we look in the Budget we see that those are important numbers. 
But National members will not do that; they will not explain and they will not justify. They hide in their various patches and constituencies and they will not explain to anyone why they broke their promises. Kate Wilkinson a Cabinet Minister who occasionally resides in my patch was told by the Prime Minister to go out and sell the increase in GST but there was not a meeting not a whimper not a press statement nothing. The invisible woman never ever fronts the bad news. Well in my patch of Waimakariri 72 percent of my electors earn under $40000 a year. Kate Wilkinson who sits in Cabinet who voted for every last measure in this legislation who never opposed it and who wants my job and everybody else’s has sold out that quadrant of the electorate. Seventy two percent of people in my patch are worse off as we sit tonight. They did not expect 5.9 percent inflation. I invite Ms Wilkinson Ms Wagner Mr Gilmore and the other tumbleweeds over there to get off their backsides get up in the House and tell us tonight why they broke their promises to the people of New Zealand and to their constituents. 
I ask why the member for Tauranga—the Perry Mason in his own lifetime; I forget his name—does not get up. He loves going on the  
Breakfast 
 TV show and waxing eloquent about his golf handicap and how he got gold membership of his local golf club. Well he will be able to afford a membership with his tax cuts but a pensioner in Tauranga will not and a person earning under $30000 will not. I invite the next speaker to show some intestinal fortitude and tell us why National members broke their promises.