Goldsmith Paul: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goldsmith Paul: Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 17 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5961. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 It was interesting to hear the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern suggest that she was offended by what this House was saying. I am not so easily offended but there is a constant refrain that comes from that side of the House that this side of the House does not care about people and it does not care about children. Well frankly I find that offensive. The reason why this Government is moving ahead with welfare reform is precisely that the current regime which we have had for the last few decades is not working effectively. We do it because we need to do it for the sake of the children of this country. 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: Labour had 9 years. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH 
: And it has had a long time. I just want to start off with a couple of quotes because what we seem to be boiling down to here this evening is diverging views about the importance of work. I will quote here from Metiria Turei in this House on the first day of this session where she talked about the Prime Minister restating the myth “that work is a path out of poverty. The truth is that it is not.” This is Mrs Turei speaking: “For the two in every five children who live in poverty whose parents work work is not the pathway out of poverty. Work is the trap because work is not properly paid.” There you have that astounding comment from the Greens whose members do not believe that work is the way out of poverty. 
I recently came across a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935. It is an interesting quote I thought from the man who probably more than anybody started welfarism in this country for those who do not know their history. He said: “Continued dependence on government support induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Well I am not sure what to make of both those comments but the point that I am making is that this side of the House believes that work is a good thing and the whole point of the Government’s activities and proposals in its welfare activities and its growth promotion and the way that it focuses on building the economy is because we believe that it is best for children to be raised in households where people work and find meaning in their lives for earned success. We go back to Michael Joseph Savage in this country promising that he would end poverty with the welfare State in New Zealand and 70 years later we still have more of it. 
So this National Government is committed to investing in ways that eliminate child hardship and improve the economic and social well-being of individuals but our welfare reforms are measures taken to support New Zealand families to ensure we are getting New Zealanders out of benefits and into work where they are so much better off. On this side of the House we are committed to fairness and an unrelenting and unapologetic focus on work. We are focused on what people can do not what they cannot do. We do not accept that it is a good thing for a child to be raised in a house where nobody has worked for generations. The essence of this bill and the Greens’ policy is just to somehow think that the problem will be solved by giving yet more and extending benefits when we should be focusing on finding ways to encourage people to get back to work which is what this Government is all about. I am afraid we all in this House agree that child poverty is an issue for this country. It is that we disagree on how best to remedy that and this bill unfortunately is not in my view one that would remedy it at all in the long term. Thank you.