Dyson Ruth: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3787. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am delighted at this peak listening time to have the opportunity to speak in opposition to the KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill. This bill is clearly the result of the panic that Bill English went into when he got into his final preparation for the Budget and realised that there was going to be yet again for the seventh year in a row no surplus. He did everything he could to try to get some money together. Some of those measures were understandable; some of them I feel so strongly opposed to that I will be putting my vote against the bill—and this is included in the one that we are debating now.For many people they will never have the opportunity to have $1000 in their savings account and it is sickening actually to listen to members opposite who earn $150000 a year—and all that they have done for the last 3 days is stand up and say “I move that the question be now put.” For that they earn $150000 a year—and additional expenses on top of that of course. And yet when we leave tonight we will have people come in and clean our offices who earn less than $15 an hour and who are expected to keep their families on that sort of income. For those people who work as hard or harder than every member of Parliament and who have had the opportunity to have $1000 put into their savings accounts once they start contributing the little bit of money that they have—and some of them do not have it to spare; they have had to cut something in order to put money into their KiwiSaver accounts—to have that $1000 taken away from them and even more galling to have the members of the National Party laugh and say that that is a good thing is I think wrong. I do not agree with it as policy. I think it lacks vision it lacks compassion and it lacks any empathy at all in understanding how many members of our society have that inability to save for their future. When you are on $150000 a year you just take it for granted but if you are on $14 or $15 an hour you are not able to put that money aside for the future.It is a sort of vision that we should have for older New Zealanders. It is a sort of vision that we should have. We would like to see older New Zealanders being able to retire and have security in their income and more than just the basic superannuation. We have got a better superannuation scheme in New Zealand than in many other countries but a married couple still gets only 66 percent of the average wage as their total superannuation income. I would challenge members opposite to try to live on that without any other savings to fall back on. For day-to-day living it is OK except for when something goes wrong when your roof needs replacing when your washing machine breaks down or when you need to fix your car—big expenditure items. If there is no money in the bank those are the people who suffer. That is why I have always supported that kick-start payment being made to people who join KiwiSaver.KiwiSaver itself was a fantastic scheme and I want to pay credit to Dr Michael Cullen for his vision in saying that we need to change the savings culture in New Zealand and this was his way of doing that. Since it has been introduced we have seen the National-led Government make cuts to the integrity of the KiwiSaver schemeyear after year after year. At every opportunity Bill English and John Key have weakened what was a very strong scheme—weakened the integrity of the KiwiSaver scheme. The minimum member contribution was reduced. We have had the fee subsidy discontinued the compulsory employer contribution capped and the employer tax credit discontinued. It is not that we have suddenly decided to weaken the KiwiSaver scheme. This measure tonight in the KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill is a desperate attempt to try to cobble together a little bit of extra money to make the surplus but it was—