Peck Mark: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Peck Mark: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13497] 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on this part. I start my comments by reminding people that I remember very well the “mother of all Budgets” prior to my coming into this place. I remember as a result of that Budget the redistribution of income from the very poor to the wealthy. Let me tell members what happened as a result of that redistribution of income in my city. We saw businesses close. The theory of trickle down simply did not work. Those who became wealthy remained wealthy and the poor had to scrap and fight for a living. The workers of this nation saw their jobs put in jeopardy by those others who were so desperate they worked for less. We saw workers—who had been told their wages and conditions would never be attacked—lose their penalty rates lose their work on Saturdays and Sundays and lose their overtime rates so that their families had to go to the Department of Social Welfare to get enough to pay their bills. 
We know that that party opposite despite the fact that its members are not prepared to say so now would see this package of change—this redistributional effort made by this Government in this Budget—gone by lunchtime and we know that Gerry Brownlee Katherine Rich John Key and Don Brash would see that their mates got the vast bulk of the money back in their pockets. 
I heard Dr Cullen on the radio this morning being very heavily questioned by  
Morning Report 
’s Sean Plunket who asked why Dr Cullen did not simply give everyone a tax cut. That family in Waihi on $55000 a year which is so incensed the Government has done nothing for it will be $150 a week better off by 2007. We know that that family will be $60 a week better off by 2005 and $120 a week better off by 2006. We know that for that family to get $150 a week in the hand delivered to it now would mean there had to be a flat tax rate in this nation of 11c in the dollar which would be $20 billion out of the tax take. 
Members of that party opposite should stand up and tell the families of this nation how they would deliver to low and middle income families in a tax cut that would not see the wealthy advantaged over the poor. It is about time it was the Budget of low to middle income families. For the last 20 years they have carried the brunt of this nation’s economic reforms and we are giving them a little bit back. It is about time! I am sick and tired of my constituents having to go to Work and Income to get a special grant to buy a second-hand refrigerator. It is time they had the ability to live with some decency and we are restoring that now. We have restored a lot of things to make life a little bit easier for them. 
I have had enough of the National Party’s cant. It is time its members stood up in this Chamber and told the families of this nation they either support them or they do not. I say they do not. I say they do not give a damn. I say they do not give a damn for anyone other than their rich mates because the distributional efforts that have been made in the last 20 years have been for the rich. Now a little bit of balance is being restored to the battlers who have worked hard to make sure they pay for their families. 
I know many of those people. They work in the freezing works the fishing industry and the timber industry. They sweep the streets and they collect the garbage. They do the work that members on that side would not contemplate doing and it is time we gave them something back. The thing those workers will understand which members on that side will not understand is that we are giving it back to them in a way that is sustainable now and into the future. That is why we are doing it over 3 years. That is why we are making sure that it is fiscally prudent and that we can continue to pay our debt. What those families understand when they get their wages every week is that if they do not pay their rent their phone or their electricity those things are taken from them. So what gives for mum and dad is food because the kids eat but mum and dad miss out.