Harawira Hone: KiwiSaver Bill — Third Reading 
Harawira Hone: KiwiSaver Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5005] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou te Whare. I start off by mihi-ing to the chairman of the Finance and Expenditure Committee Mr Shane Jones because he told me to. 
Last week I spoke about the importance of having an “IwiSaver Bill” because as the independent Maori voice in Parliament the Maori Party is committed to saving iwi saving hapu and saving whanau. When I think of saving whanau I naturally think of saving the children because there are about 200000 Maori children in Aotearoa and nearly half of them live in families that are not eligible to be part of the KiwiSaver package. Mind you some 80000 Pakeha kids and another 50000 Pasifika and other kids will not be eligible to be part of the package either. That is nearly a quarter of a million kids living in severe and significant hardship right here in Godzone. There are 226000 Kiwi kids living in homes without heating going without fresh fruit and vegetables and too poor to pay for their medicine. 
That cannot help but make me think that calling this bill the KiwiSaver Bill is a cruel test of faith for just as our national icon the kiwi is under siege so too are our national treasures our children. If anyone needs saving it is our Kiwi kids particularly our Maori and Pasifika children. Here is the real parallel: it is the brown kiwi apparently that is classified as being in serious decline because of the threat of savage predators and dangerous habitats. How true the comparison is. The predators in this bill may not be stoats and cats but make no mistake they are creating conditions that threaten the very survival of our Kiwi kids. 
The New Zealand Institute noted that although there is a healthy national fiscal position and strong corporate profitability clearly there are still many blocks to a savings culture. Despite the 17 percent growth in the economy Maori are still unemployed at a rate three times higher than that of Pakeha and are still overrepresented amongst the working poor. Clearly the fruits of economic prosperity have not been shared equally. That makes the recommendation of the Finance and Expenditure Committee to extend the scheme to cover Government workers overseas but still not to provide support for our most vulnerable—the brown Kiwi—a little hard to take. It seems the exotic brands will get the birdseed while the brown Kiwi goes hungry. 
We are also disappointed at the select committee decision not to have a lower contribution rate for those on low incomes because it might lead to lower rates of savings for KiwiSaver members. So instead of making positive steps towards expanding the savings culture as proposed by the Green Party’s 2 percent entry point once more decisions are being made that will work against the poor brown Kiwi. 
The National Council of Women said a family’s ability to save depended on the amount of spare cash that the family had and it asked Parliament to take into account the rising cost of energy fuel phone charges rates and the massive debt being created by easy access to loans. The New Zealand Public Service Association also noted that 30 percent to 40 percent of Kiwis on low incomes were unlikely to have spare cash for savings. That is a big group of Kiwis who will miss out. The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society tells us that the threat facing kiwis is urgent and that all mainland species of kiwi are threatened with extinction unless the causes of decline are addressed immediately. In much the same way this bill misses the point that unless we create the conditions for a secure future for the most vulnerable sector of our population its future will be under threat as well. 
One of the main elements working against a successful savings culture is the fact that people cannot see the rewards the incentives or why they should even think of giving up their hard-won cash. The independent actuary Mr Kelvin Prisk said the $1000 initial incentive was too low compared with tax incentives in other areas. He also said the lack of ongoing incentives and the failure to provide for employer subsidies would make it hard for the scheme to succeed. Industry Retirement and Insurance Services and many other financial service agencies unions and employers also recommended a lower entry point than the 4 percent noted in the bill. 
The KiwiSaver Bill is a concept that the Maori Party desperately wants to support because of our commitment to investing in whanau reducing child poverty and securing long-term prosperity for everyone. But we cannot just ignore the fact that while some Kiwi kids will benefit from having their parents in a job a lot of other brown Kiwi kids will miss out. Ten years ago in speaking out against National’s decision to restrict the child tax credit Annette King the then Opposition MP said: “It isolates beneficiaries from other families. It treats them like lepers and worst of all it treats their children differently. What is different between a child from a beneficiary’s family and a child from a family in which someone is working. … Does that child look different when he or she goes to school?”. How quickly politicians forget the fire of their own rhetoric when they get into power. For just as on one hand this Government is calling for long-term savings and financial independence on the other hand families on benefits are being marginalised and excluded from the benefits of this scheme. 
Nearly 2 million people in Aotearoa live on less than $25000 a year. How will those Kiwis manage a 4 percent cut on an already too thin pay packet? How will Kiwis on the minimum wage get by? A 4 percent cut in an income of $306 a week leaves those people with a take-home pay of $290—the price of a Bordeaux according to my colleague Mr Gordon Copeland. Another point raised by the Child Poverty Action Group was that taxpayers had to carry all the risk. There is no Crown guarantee for KiwiSaver schemes which makes all the talk about the Government’s commitment to the security and financial stability of New Zealand families ring just a little hollow. The real worry though with the swept up KiwiSaver promo is that low-income families will get sucked into the scheme thereby sacrificing basic essentials like kai power or paying off the dreaded loan shark just because they want to get into a savings scheme only to find out that by ignoring the essentials they have sacrificed their family’s health and well-being. 
I heard a story about a young woman who told us about how as a little girl she asked her mum for some money to get some bread for breakfast and for lunches for her five brothers and sisters. Her mum said: “Nothing miss. We’ll have to wait till tomorrow.” The Maori Party supports the growth of a savings culture. We want a secure stable and hopefully prosperous tomorrow for our people just like everybody else. But like those Maori kids I just spoke of we do not want to have to wait until tomorrow either. We want toast for breakfast sandwiches for lunch and bread pudding for tea—or at least the choice to have those things—as well as the ability to buy some flour for a rainy day. 
That is why we really like the thinking behind Ngai Tahu’s iwi saver proposal. Its Whai Rawa scheme is a long-term savings plan to support whanau independence by increasing personal wealth. It is not about separating people whereby the brown Kiwis get locked out of KiwiSaver because their parents may or may not have a job. Whai Rawa is about encouraging Ngai Tahu to be breadwinners for today and tomorrow. Their vision is mo tatou a mo ka uri a muri ake nei—for us and our children after us. The Maori Party applauds Ngai Tahu’s initiative and indeed all other whanau hapu and iwi with the insight and the initiative to take care of the long-term issues affecting the well-being of their members. We know we can do it. 
The Maori Party celebrates the success of Maori participating in and succeeding in a modern technologically advanced and highly globalised economy. We celebrate our sports figures our broadcasters our business pioneers and our iwi innovators. We celebrate the revival of our language the power of our kapahaka and the growth of Maori education. We celebrate bold new initiatives like the one taken by Ngai Tahu to ensure that our people will not only survive but also will flourish. 
Maori have a proud history as a culture of savings. Through our pataka kai—our storehouses—rahui to protect the resources of the seas and the forests grandad keeping his pension under the mattress and right down to my colleague Mr Shane Jones pinching his brother’s pennies so he could buy comics later Maori have a proud history in savings and conservation. We spoke strongly against aspects of this bill during its first two readings so that people would know of the depth of our concern for our people. But we will support this bill at its third reading because promoting the idea of savings is a worthy ideal warts and all. Kia ora tatou.