Hide Rodney: Taxation (Annual Rates Venture Capital and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Taxation (Annual Rates Venture Capital and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17808. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 ACT also supports United Future’s amendments but if they do not go through we will be voting against this bill—unlike United Future. We actually believe that we should vote according to our principles not according to political expedience. I know that a United Future member fasted for 21 days in order to stop the Civil Union Bill then got a message from God about a 59:59 vote on a taxation bill. United Future could have sunk the Civil Union Bill with one vote. But what did it do? Its members walked in like ducks to the slaughter and voted for it. Here we have the United Future members supporting a Government that has taxed and spent like none other. They have come down to the Chamber with amendments to this bill the Government will veto yet they will turn round and vote for the bill. 
Pansy Wong 
: Oh shocking. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: It is shocking and I just do not understand it. But Mr Copeland does have a point and it is this: last week in the House the Hon Dr Michael Cullen admitted that after 5 long years of Labour’s great administration the average household after tax— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: That’s right. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I see that Mr Cosgrove agrees with this point. After 5 years of economic growth the average household after tax is no better off in real terms. What else did Michael Cullen admit to the House last week? He admitted that that same average household is having to give an extra $2910 in real terms which is an increase of $3000 in 5 years to the Government. That is the trouble with this taxation bill. Hard-working New Zealanders are worse off under Labour because they are paying so much more tax. We have “Scrooge McCullen” sitting there awash in their tax dollars—he is swimming in their tax dollars—so why does he not for Christmas provide a bit of tax relief? 
United Future and Mr Copeland are going about it in the wrong way. When members turn up to Parliament they do not just promise their votes to a Government no matter what. 
Hon Bill English 
: Yes you do. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: No one does not and I say to Bill English that the ACT party will not be doing that next year with the National Party. We will not be promising support to the new Government no matter what. There will be a price. But United Future comes along and joins the anti-Christian high-tax and high-spend Labour Party. It says: “Take us for granted for the next 3 years and we will go down to the House and talk about things but never deliver.” I say to Mr Copeland that when people vote us into this great Parliament of ours they expect a bit more than “poodle power” when we get here. They actually want members to stand up here and say what they believe and to vote accordingly—not vote for the opposite of what they talk about. 
I say to Mr Copeland that there is a fallacy in the whole idea of indexing thresholds and indeed income splitting. It is this: why do we have a progressive tax rate to begin with? Why does someone who earns twice as much pay three four or five times more tax than he or she otherwise would? What is fair about that? That is why the ACT party stands for a flattening of the tax rate—so that someone who earns twice as much pays twice as much tax not three times as much. I say to Mr Copeland that if we did that we would not need to worry about indexing the rates because we would have a tax rate system that was fair efficient and good for the economy. One simple rate would also overcome any concern about income splitting between a man and his wife and all the attendant problems of such income splitting.