Mallard Trevor: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Mallard Trevor: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:660;Page:8739] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I was one of the many New Zealanders who unfortunately believed the hype that led up to the Prime Minister’s statement. I thought that we would have a grand plan that we would have a big shift in the approach of the Government and that we would have progress. Frankly from a political point of view I was quite anxious about the possibilities coming from this statement. But what happened? We found that National has no plan to increase wages and no plan to create jobs. What it has decided to do is to fall back to its old approach and have tax cuts for the rich paid for by the poor. What we want is a system that is fair and one that people who are on the average wage will get real benefit from. But as outlined by Mr Key yesterday—more to the media than in this House—no one on an average or a below average wage such as $48000 or below will be affected by his drop in the top rate of tax. No one will be affected and no one will benefit. But the Prime Minister will get $509 a week— 
Hon Annette King 
: More. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —more—but just on the pocket money he gets from Parliament not on his real income. He will get much much more on his real income but on the pin money that he gets from his parliamentary job he will get $509 a week more. If one happens to be the head of Telecom it will be $2500 a week more. 
What John Key says depends on when one listens to him saying it. Last year he was asked very directly about a hike in GST. He stated: “National is not going to be raising GST. National wants to cut taxes not raise taxes.” He then went on to say that if a National Government was doing “a half-decent job” it would not need to raise GST. “If National was doing a half-decent job”—says John Key—“it would not have to raise GST.” 
Then yesterday we had the Prime Minister misleading again. He said that New Zealand taxes consumption at a relatively low rate. That is what he said. John Key said that New Zealand taxes consumption at a relatively low rate. I thought that was interesting and I tried to find out what it meant. Let us look at like countries and look at the OECD. Thirty countries were reported on in the latest OECD report it was published in 2009 and it goes up to 2008. There are 30 countries there and if we were relatively low I would have thought that we would be in the bottom 10. Yes Chris Tremain the member for Napier nods. He also says that we would be in the bottom 10 if we were relatively low. I was looking for us. I was trying to find us on the chart and I could not find us. I had to go all the way up to No. 6. We are the sixth-highest consumption-taxed country in the OECD out of 30 countries. Are we relatively low? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Of course not. It is just another misleading statement from the Prime Minister. We already hit our poor much harder than most other countries and he is proposing to put up GST. 
As a proportion of our GDP we already pay 110 percent more than Australia does. We pay 110 percent more. We pay 8.4 percent of our GDP in consumption tax and in Australia that is 4 percent. So what is the story? The Prime Minister is the person who promised that we would have equality with Australia. He is the person who said that that is the objective for New Zealand. Now we have Dr Bollard whom I think everyone in this House would believe before they would believe the Prime Minister saying that that is not possible with this Government’s settings. 
What do we have? We have a Prime Minister who is clearly bored with the job. He has a pile of mates who are high-income earners and he is asking how the Government could possibly help its mates with their poor income and what progress can it make relatively quickly to do what is rapidly being labelled out in Wainuiomata as the Sheriff of Nottingham approach. What he is doing— 
Paul Quinn 
: Have you been there recently? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I was in Wainuiomata this morning. Does the member remember the way to Hutt South? He has not been to his office for a long time. I was in Wainuiomata this morning. That member promised to shift to Hutt South but he still lives in Roseneath. He promised to shift to Hutt South and he still— 
Paul Quinn 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has made a false accusation against me. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is not a point of order and the member knows that. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I ask when the member is shifting to Hutt South or at least I ask when he will get a global positioning system to help him find his way out to the Hutt Valley when he is wanted out there rather than getting lost on the way to the meetings in the way that he always does and not turning up when he promises to. He can interject on me— 
Paul Quinn 
: I’ve been to more meetings there than you have recently. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yeah but not without a mirror. That member has his meetings with a mirror; that is what he does. He looks at himself in the mirror he preens himself and he says that he has had a meeting. That is Paul Quinn. [ 
Interruption 
] Hekia says he is not the sharpest pencil in the House and I agree with her. I agree with Hekia Parata. 
Hekia Parata 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am being deliberately misquoted. I said that the member Paul Quinn was good-looking not that he was not as sharp a pencil as elaborated. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member knows that that is a debatable point. It is not a point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I would like to focus for part of my speech on the Minister of Education Anne Tolley. I asked her a question today about whether she was in the 11.9 percent who claim to fully understand her national standards system or in the 88 percent who admit that they do not. I make it very clear that I am with John Hattie Lester Flockton and just about every other assessment academic in the country. I accept that I do not understand what is in her mind to do with the assessment system. No one understands how it will work and the reason is that a whole pile of the work that needs to be done on it has not been done on it yet. John Hattie was very clear that the most able kids will suffer so I ask what we are doing. That Government has taken away gifted and talented education and now it is focusing down the curriculum so that the brightest kids will suffer the most as a result of this system. This is so badly designed that John Hattie told the Prime Minister to scrap it and start again. 
I support high standards. As Minister of Education I put well over $10 million into developing asTTle. That produced— 
Paul Quinn 
: Is that all? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: People come from around the world to look at asTTle. It is the best system in the world it is working well it produces really good reports for parents and if someone could read them to Paul Quinn then he would understand them.