Sio Su'a William: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Sio Su'a William: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18996] 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 We have noticed that this Government called this session of urgency but has spent all its speaking opportunities trying to close down the debate on the Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill. That makes no sense whatsoever. 
I follow on from my colleague Sue Moroney by saying this debate is about cuts and the removal of opportunities for our country to save. It is about gutting KiwiSaver and gutting Working for Families. I say to members on the other side of the Chamber that I hope they are prepared to stay overnight because they called this urgency and we will keep holding them to account today. 
We are talking about clauses 1 and 2. The bill should be called the “Families Who Are Struggling Are Still Struggling Bill” because despite the Government’s rhetoric that the Budget is helpful to the general public the fact remains that those who were struggling are still struggling today. Cuts to KiwiSaver and cuts to Working for Families will not help those people at all. 
We could call the bill the “Families Who Want to Save Will Now Have Second Thoughts Bill”. KiwiSaver was designed to encourage people to save. Incentives were there to promote and encourage people to save. What did we have? We had 1.7 million people saving under the scheme. But what will this legislation do? It will discourage those people because instead of receiving what they were entitled to under the previous legislation we are now asking them to have their support cut in half. We could also call this bill as my colleague David Cunliffe said the “Making It Harder for Kiwis to Save Bill”. Is that not what the Government is doing here? It is cutting support for people to save so the “Making It Harder for Kiwis to Save Bill” is probably a better name. It could also be called the “Pay More to Save the Same Bill”. Is that not what the  
New Zealand Herald 
 called it? That is a good name for it. 
It could be called the “Broken Promises Bill” because many of the public would recall that prior to the 2008 election Mr Key made promises that no cuts would be made to KiwiSaver and Working for Families. What did we get after National won the election in 2008? Tinkering. What did we get in 2009? More tinkering. What did we get in 2010? Another tinkering. What do we now get in 2011? Two major tinkerings. That is what I meant. The way to destroy something good is to allow it to bleed. This Government is allowing things to bleed by tinkering here tinkering there sitting on its hands and doing nothing about the overall economic plan except focusing people’s attention on the debt we have. 
The other issue is that according to its plan we are supposed to come out of debt a year earlier. Instead of a $16 billion deficit somehow miraculously we will have an $8 billion deficit one year before the previous estimates. If the estimates were wrong in 2009 and 2010 how the heck can we expect the Government to have it right this time? How the heck can we expect the Government to miraculously create 177000 jobs? We have 155000 people still unemployed and the Government’s own projections show there will be a 4.5 percent unemployment rate right until the year 2025. 
Where is the support the Government keeps talking about while it cuts money from initiatives that are there for the sake of this country? I want the Minister of Revenue to answer. Could he please answer yes or no whether there is a cut of $2.6 million from KiwiSaver— 
Sue Moroney 
: Billion. 
SU’A WILLIAM SIO 
: Billion. Can he also tell us whether there is a cut of $448 million from Working for Families? The Minister is not saying anything so we can assume ladies and gentlemen that the whole purpose of this bill is to cut chop and gut Working for Families and cut chop and gut KiwiSaver which are there for the benefit of this country of ours. That information gives people a little view about what this debate is all about. I note a remark made by one of the other members of the Opposition earlier this week: when we consider this Budget on the whole it seems that it is a gambler’s Budget. Gamblers do not care whose money they use.