Connell Brian: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:4917] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I thank Madam Chair for the call on Part 2 of the KiwiSaver Bill. I start by saying that the speech by Lianne Dalziel was one of the finest Tory speeches I think I have heard in this House for a long time. Right at the heart of her speech was capitalism; people who work hard are rewarded. Mind you the mind boggles at the thought of Lianne Dalziel in a pair of knee-high boots. 
I want now to tell my own story in relation to this bill one that sums up the Labour Party’s attitude to saving. When I was about the same age as Lianne Dalziel in her story I was saving hard. When Mum and Dad gave me threepence or sixpence for an ice cream—this story does go back a long time—I would take the money and I would save it. Then when all the kids in my family—and there were six of them—ran out of money for ice creams Mum or Dad would say to me: “Don’t be mean Brian share your money.” All that time I had gone without ice creams. And now the Labour Government comes along and says I have to share that money and Mr Employer has to share the money because it is not fair. 
It is typical is it not? Here we are debating Part 2 of a bill where we are spending more time dealing with the process of the bill than actually getting it structured right in the first place. My colleagues have quoted chapter and verse as to what is wrong with the bill but the slow-witted members of the Government are still struggling to understand why someone earning $40000 a year will simply not be able to afford to take up the opportunities that this scheme offers; it simply will not work. 
I have some questions for the Minister in the chair. Clause 9 is headed: “Meaning of new employment”. I ask the Minister whether if an employee who is in the scheme changes employment the scheme is portable and is fully vested and the employee can go. I ask the Minister to take a call and answer whether employees can take their contributions from one scheme and go to another employer if that employer is not an exempt employer under the definition of this scheme. I should be grateful if the Minister in the chair would take a call and answer that question. The fundamental flaw in this bill is that it will not bring about the behavioural change that is necessary if we are going to have a savings culture in this country. 
Darren Hughes 
: Will the member answer a question? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: The member is calling out and asking me whether I will answer a question. When he is speaking certainly I will. When I am speaking he will listen because he might learn something. The fundamental question is that this bill will not bring about any behavioural change. How can a behavioural change be brought about when people simply have an opt-out clause in a scheme like this? People will opt out. They will take their $1000 and they will act according to what we have told them from time immemorial and that it is that it is better to pay off a mortgage than to save. The biggest asset that people create in their lives is in their houses and that is the crux of the matter—the distinction between good debt and bad debt. Whether we like it or not we have created a consumer society. We have created a society where people say they want they want they want and they are going to have. What these people do—and it is no fault of theirs because we have made money so easily available—is buy or get into bad debt. They will buy a TV or a depreciating asset called a car that a few finance companies are finding out about now rather than putting money into investments that will create asset wealth.