Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Well the last speech was non-fiction rather than fiction—I will give you that. Mr Chair this is my fourth contribution on Part 1 which means you will not give me any more regardless of whether or not it is novel new different or anything else. I want to take this opportunity to speak about something I have not spoken about in my previous three calls which is the tabled amendment in the name of my colleague Jacinda Ardern.This amendment effectively creates a Working for Families package that I think has support across the Committee. It is very important that people watching and listening to this debate understand the impact of the amendment that Jacinda Ardern is putting forward. All New Zealanders understand that people on modest incomes with one two three four children are doing it tough at the moment. They have seen their rents go up. They have seen their cost of living go up—be it petrol be it groceries. They are finding it hard to make ends meet and we as a Parliament at a time when the Government is running large surpluses should be doing something about that. A portion of what is in this bill today does that—only a small portion only one-seventh of the whole of the Government's package actually goes towards Working for Families another seventh for the accommodation supplement and five-sevenths for these unfocused tax cuts. What Jacinda Ardern is attempting to do here is to actually make sure that we do simplify Working for Families—we support that—and also improve the amount of money people are getting through the tax credit.What her amendment also does is remove the clauses that change the abatement rates and the abatement thresholds for Working for Families. I know this again is quite a complex technical area for people to be able to understand. Essentially what the Government has done in this bill is said: When you're earning income we're going to reduce the point at which you start losing your Working for Families entitlement." Up until now if you have been earning up to $36350 you are cruising along fine and you get your full entitlement to Working for Families. The moment you cross that threshold of $36350 it starts reducing. What the Government is saying today is: "Well we don't want so many people to get Working for Families so we're going to reduce that threshold to $35000 and then just in case we haven't reduced and constricted Working for Families quite enough we're going to increase the rate at which you start losing your entitlement." That has up to now been 22.5 percent and it will go up to 25 percent. Essentially the impact of that change in this bill is to say you are going to lose more money faster in Working for Families.That plays out when you look at the Budget across the out-years: $373 million on Working for Families in 2018-19; $318 million a year for Working for Families in 2019-20; and $310 million dollars in 2020-21. It is going down. The amount of money the Government is putting into Working for Families—the very thing it said this Budget was about—goes down because the Government is changing the abatement rates and the threshold at which it starts abating. We do not support that bit of the Working for Families package and Jacinda Ardern's amendment specifically deals with that by saying: "Let's not make those abatement changes." The effect of this amendment is to say that yes we should simplify the categories within Working for Families. There are too many of them and it is quite complex when people move in and out of different income levels. Yes we should recognise that there are greater costs at different age groups. I heard Jacinda Ardern earlier today reference the independent panel that the Children's Commissioner put together—good on the Government for picking that up. Well done. But doing that and then taking away with the other hand via these abatement changes is simply not fair. I am urging all members of the Committee to support Jacinda Ardern's amendment. It will create a fair Working for Families package. Not a sufficient one—I want to make that very clear. The Labour Party would be focusing our resources more on getting support to those families. But at least that would be something the House could walk away from this urgency debate saying we all agree on. However if the amendment does not pass we will in effect be reducing the entitlement to Working for Families across the years. Unfortunately that is the record of this National Government. It is what it did in 2011 and it is doing it again now. Government members want to dress it up as supporting working families. The reality is that they are not but if they do support Jacinda Ardern's amendment then they would at least have gone some way towards supporting working families."