Barry Maggie: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Barry Maggie: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5966. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill. Even the name is ridiculous. It is of course a natural extension for a party that wants to print money put us on the path that Zimbabwe is on and make us the richest country on the planet. Quantitative easing—literally printing money—is a flawed notion for a party that thinks it is helping out people who are poor. It is very consistent with the bill it has put up now which we utterly oppose. Perhaps I will come back to quantitative easing because there is so much to say about it. 
I would like to firstly outline why we are against the bill. The John Key National-led Government is committed to investing in ways to eliminate child hardship and to improve the economic and social well-being of individuals families and communities. This is a bill that would work against that. Our welfare reforms and the measures we are taking to support New Zealand families are going to absolutely ensure that we will get New Zealanders off benefits and into work where they will be much better off instead of leaving them imprisoned in a benefit system. On this side of the House we are committed to fairness and an unrelenting focus on work. This is what people do if they can. Being on benefits being cocooned being on “Cloud Green” or whatever you are calling yourselves these days is a ridiculous thing—as ridiculous as the name of this bill and the notion that underpins it. This is a bill from the Greens that seeks to pay people to stay on benefits rather than support working families. [ 
Interruption 
] Of course it is. There are none so blind as those who do not see. 
Let us go back to one of the favourite things that Dr Norman put out last week about quantitative easing. I mean how ridiculous—hitting the poor the hardest. If you printed money in the way that Zimbabwe does and Dr Norman and his band of merry Greens would have us do then everybody who goes to the supermarket goes to the petrol pump goes to buy children’s clothing will have to pay more. So what is the point of that? How is that going to relieve child poverty and hardship within families? It will make it worse. The 1+1=2 scenario is lost on the Greens. Arithmetically they are utterly challenged and this is yet further proof of it. 
I looked through this bill. The current in-work tax credit which is offering currently an incentive for people with families to gain and retain sustainable employment is also helping to ensure a better living standard and to secure a future for them and their families—not borrow borrow borrow get further into debt get indebted not just for this generation but for future generations. Again it is the printing money thing. You know we should remind ourselves about the “Watermelon Greens”—green on the outside and bright red to the core. It is a very socialist—and that is putting it mildly—measure that they come out with repeatedly. It is nonsense. So I am very proud to be part of a Government that does not support it in any way shape or form. 
Let us look at some of the evidence shall we? I mean this is something you probably cannot google in 2 minutes which is what the Greens and their research unit tend to go in for rather than substantive evidence and substantive proof. It is just kind of what they do really. So let us look at the evidence. It suggests that the most effective way to achieve a long-term—not just a short-term little tiny Green-minded one but a long-term one—sustained reduction in child poverty is to address the causes directly and that is why encouraging and assisting people into paid work while continuing to provide support in the short term is targeted. The pained expressions the unbelieving faces of the Greens! They really do not get it and maybe they never will. But we will certainly not be voting in favour of this bill. 
I am very proud to be part of a Government that in fact does things that really make the future secure for our children grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We care about the environment. The Greens purport to. How many questions do they ever ask in the House about the environment? There is the odd one on fracking the Maui’s dolphin one or two on—what is your favourite Ms Logie? Sex-change people going into prisons. There has been a lot of talk of these fringe issues. And the other stuff they prattle on about? Well it is about the economy because Dr Norman wants to be the next Minister of Finance if the unholy alliance of Labour and the Greens ever actually makes it across the line. I fervently hope they do not for the sake of New Zealand and our long-term future. 
There is an international consensus too that the Greens tend to miss out on. The medical community knows and understands—our esteemed Minister of Health the Hon Tony Ryall does as well—the general health benefits. People’s recovery from illness or injury is improved. To be in an environment where there is not benefit dependency is a good thing. Thank you. 
Debate interrupted.