Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): My message to New Zealanders is quite clear: this is not as good as it gets. New Zealand is a better country than this and it can continue to be a better country and things can be a lot better than they are. We live in a fantastic country but it can be better. And I tell you what I want to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr who made that very famous quote that our taxes are the price we pay for civilisation". In order to live in a civilised society we pay taxes.The question that every New Zealander should be asking themself is: can we afford tax cuts now when we had so many pressing needs that need to be funded and that the Government needs to fund? Can we afford those tax cuts now particularly given that those tax cuts—if National's past track record is anything to go by—will be rigged in favour of the people who are already doing all right? The first lot of tax cuts that National delivered when it first came into Government was paid for by working families–who found that GST went up. They paid more on their day-to-day bills and their day-to-day groceries so that National could give tax cuts that were weighted in favour of the people who were already doing well. In other words the hard workers paid more so that the privileged could pay less. That is not right and yet we will see more of that.I think of the education system and I think of the pressing needs that we have in the education system when I consider whether we can afford to have tax cuts. I think about the families who were in tears at the Education and Science Committee when they were talking about the desperate need for their kids to get the support that they needed for their special needs. They were in tears; they had to fight; they felt like they had to beg in order to get their kids the support that they need. That is not good enough—we are a better country than that. Those kids deserve their fair shot at education. I think about the kids who are having to move school all the time because their parents cannot find stable housing—we are a better country than that. We can do better for those kids and those families than that.I think about the parents who are working two jobs—or more—working every waking hour that they have because they do not want their kids to miss out on the same educational opportunities that other parents are able to pay for despite the fact that our education system is supposed to be free. It is not. And increasingly we are seeing in our school system that the kids whose parents can afford to pay get a better deal than the kids whose parents cannot. That is not right. That is not the Kiwi way and we should actually fund schools properly so that every Kiwi kid gets the opportunity that they deserve.I think about the teacher-aides who are barely earning a minimum wage. Despite the fact that they are working with some of the most vulnerable kids in the country and some of the kids with the highest needs they barely earn the minimum wage. They have got no job security. They do not know from term to term whether they are going to be back. This Government will not do anything for them and says that tax cuts are affordable. All of these things need to be weighed up against the Government's desire to deliver tax cuts that the country at this point simply cannot afford.I think about housing. I think about the number of people whom we have living in transient situations because there is a pressing need for State houses and Government members have their heads buried in the sand. Here is a classic example: in my own electorate the Government has demolished State houses and sold them off because it said that there is no need—and now it is scrambling to find more houses for families who need them. It sold them off and it demolished them and yet we have got a huge waiting list of people. Of course the waiting list is much larger than the official waiting list for houses because the Government will not let a whole lot of people with genuine and real need even on to the waiting list in the first place; that is simply wrong.I think about the police and I think about the fact that they do an amazing job in our communities—and yet there are not enough of them. They simply are not being given the resources that they need to do the jobs that they have of keeping our communities safe. I have got a lot of sympathy for the situation that the police find themselves in: they are working extra time they are working incredibly hard and they are not being backed by this Government. There are not enough of them and they are not getting the support they need.Most importantly I think about the future generations of New Zealand—something that I have thought about a lot more just recently—and I think what kind of country are we going to be leaving them? Frankly I want to leave them a much better country than the one they are likely to inherit at the moment. I want to leave them a country where superannuation is secured for all New Zealanders—not just the current generation while we kick in to touch debates about how we pay for future generations. We should be restarting contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund because that is one of the ways that we can make sure that superannuation is there for all New Zealanders and they get that promise—that Kiwi promise—of a secure retirement. We can be a better country than this but tax cuts will set us backward not forward."