Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Third Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2156] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 As my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe has said Labour of course will support this bill because we authored much of it—three-quarters of it in fact. But I do also acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne who was also the Minister of Revenue then despite the criticism from Mr Foss about delays. I do not believe that either the previous Government or Mr Dunne in his capacity as the then Minister of Revenue did anything to delay this bill. I think we wanted to get it right as we all did so Mr Foss’s uncharitable comments about Mr Dunne and the previous Government can stand as they do for people to scrutinise. 
This is good legislation. I acknowledge it will help a whole host of small businesses that Mr Dunne and others have been passionate about for many many years. I also note though that Labour has urged the Government to go further and undertake additional work as we mentioned in respect of a further reduction in the use-of-money interest the tax deductibility of patent costs and the uplift basis. But I also make the point that although this is good legislation it does not acknowledge as part of the Government’s so-called overall programme the seriousness of the recession that we face. Therese Arseneau summed it up I think when she said on  
Q+A 
: “We need to hear very clearly that National has a plan.” She also said: “This is not just any ordinary recession.” I offer members opposite the opportunity to note that. This is probably the biggest recession or economic crisis globally and for New Zealand that we will see certainly in our lifetime. Ms Arseneau went on to say: “I hear no action plan in terms of what he”—I presume that is the Prime Minister—”is going to do to maximise our competitive advantage.” 
The problem we have here is that this is piecemeal. This is good legislation—Labour has supported it and we will support it—but if one looks at it in the overall fabric or the overall jigsaw that is supposed to be a plan that the Government is charged with implementing to get New Zealand out of minimise and contract the recession and make the landing softer and save as many jobs as possible then we see that this is only a very very small component. When we look at what the plan is we see that the problem is that we have not heard one we do not know whether one exists nor do the New Zealand people. The only thing we have really heard is a couple of absurd examples that were mentioned in speeches as we went through this bill in the second reading debate and the Committee stage where the biggest thing to come out of the Job Summit and the most spectacular answer to the biggest global economic crisis in our history is a cycleway. The Prime Minister told us that the cycleway costings would be around $50 million although we now know from experts that it will be close to if not exceeding $300 million and it will create—the Prime Minister tells us—4000 jobs. It will create 4000 jobs when we are losing 1000 jobs per week! Treasury the Government’s own adviser tells us that in the last 3 months we have lost 30000 jobs. Apparently the major plank to come out of the Job Summit was a cycleway. 
The other point that has been trumpeted in conjunction with this bill as part of the economic plan has been the 9-day working fortnight. The problem there as part of the so-called plan that the Government has is that it is underfunded it targets the wrong areas and critically it lacks the training component. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Everybody supports it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The member says everybody supports it. I think it is great that at Fisher and Paykel Appliances for instance 60 jobs have been preserved. I think that is fantastic. But that is 4000 jobs if we throw in the cycleway and 60 jobs if we throw in Fisher and Paykel Appliances and we are losing— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And 80 press secretaries. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: There is the National Government’s equivalent of the “jobs machine”. 
 Jim Anderton’s “jobs machine” created 360000-plus jobs. My colleague says 85 jobs will be created through the Steven Joyce spin doctor machine of press secretaries. I suppose 85 new jobs is a good thing—huge salaries. That is a fiscally prudent Government doing its thing as the battlers battle away to save their jobs. But the problem is that if we add 4000 jobs for the cycleway take 60 jobs out of Fisher and Paykel Appliances and lose 1000 jobs a week—and we have lost 30000-plus in the last 3 months—and then the Prime Minister makes a commitment to having 100000 jobs created and preserved then we will fall well short. 
I repeat the comments of Therese Arseneau who said: “We need to hear a very clear plan from National. This is not just an ordinary recession.” I think National either thinks this is an ordinary recession or as I said in a previous speech on this bill it has put politics before really delving in and trying to save and preserve New Zealanders’ jobs. The announcements that National has made are a drop in the ocean when compared to what is happening out there in terms of job losses. I do not have any feeling of celebration about that; I have a feeling of tragedy as 1000 New Zealanders a week lose their jobs. Ms Wagner says that everybody supports the 9-day working fortnight. Well we will see. We will see whether 100000 jobs are created out of it as the Prime Minister said. We will see as we lose 1000 jobs a week whether those 1000 people each week support what Ms Wagner says they will support. We will see as ordinary Kiwis on the 9-day working fortnight effectively lose 10 percent of their wages whether they will support that. 
We will come back to Ms Wagner’s comment at a different time but in the same place and we will ask her whether she stands by her comments to the 1000 people a week who are losing their jobs. I think New Zealanders will look back and say that the National Government did not take this recession seriously when every other economy in the world is hitting it as hard as it can upfront with expenditure and commitments on infrastructure. We are talking about real commitments not re-announcing policies like the scrapping of the State housing bill and then Phil Heatley has announced that 69 State houses will be built. Well whoopee we are losing 1000 jobs a week. Members can imagine if President Obama Kevin Rudd or Prime Minister Brown had risen in the House of Commons in the Australian Parliament or in an address to the Joint Houses of Congress and said that their big hit to solve the recession was to build a cycleway. 
 Members can imagine what the media there would have done. When we throw all these measures in together they are a pebble on the beach compared with the multitude of grains of sand and rubble that is being created through this global economic recession. National’s only other answer of course is to cut programmes that work so it guts KiwiSaver and it guts research and development tax expenditure. 
This bill has been introduced to legitimately assist small business but on the other hand people should not forget that one of the biggest measures to create new and real jobs through research and development tax credits was Labour’s research and development tax credit especially for the manufacturing sector and others which this Government gutted. Members know what that will mean. If one can gain the research and development tax credit in Australia as business people are telling me and it is actually happening now the next step and the next jump is to ask why they do not just relocate and do the whole job in Australia—the jobs; the lot—because they cannot get the tax credit here. If there was ever a time we needed businesses researching and developing new products and new services and therefore creating new and sustainable jobs for the future it is now yet National has cut the tax credit. It throws a few pebbles on the beach and then it cuts substantive programmes. Then it cuts safeguards like KiwiSaver and accident compensation. 
I suspect that what it is proposing to do with the accident compensation scheme will become a defining issue in the next 3 years as people who are down on their luck because they have lost their jobs get injuries and then have the rug pulled out from under them by this crew—as they did in the last election. I remember getting up on the stump and being called a liar by National candidates when I talked about what they would do to superannuation which they have started on already; about what they would do to accident compensation which they have started on already; and about what they would do to the research and development tax credits which they have started on already. I remember candidates on my patch calling me a liar and saying that this would never happen. I just asked them what they did last time and they said they would not do it again. Well they have started on this. 
I say to members opposite that this is the biggest global recession we have had in our lifetime. The people demand a plan. Those members were elected to deliver a plan; they have no plan. They go around New Zealand asking people what the plan should be and then they do not listen to them. I commend this bill but I say that it is time for the Government to get serious and truly help people.