Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3998] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It was a slightly surreal feeling to sit through the first and second readings of the Taxation (Budget Tax Measures) Bill under urgency and hear National members rant and rave about how important it is to cancel the tax cuts that they passed under urgency just 5 months ago. How things have changed in 5 months! I thought it might be quite good fun to go back to the  
Hansard 
 of 9 December 2008 and hear what National members had to say about why tax cuts were so vitally important. I go back to the speech made by David Bennett who spoke not long before me tonight. I have a very good quotation from him from 9 December 2008 and I think it is quite a reliable one: “One cannot say yes to tax cuts before an election and then say no to them after an election”. I have here the National Party’s pledge card from before the election in which it promises tax cuts every year—in 2009 2010 and 2011—yet here we are sitting under urgency and National is taking those tax cuts away only 5 months after dishing them out. 
There is even better stuff from David Bennett. He said: “The National Government with its coalition partners will deliver a tax cut programme. We will not just talk about it; we will not just put legislation out that is about some time in the future. We will actually deliver that tax cut programme and that is what we as a Government are about.” In December 2008 that is what National was all about. It was the core part of what National came here to do but 5 months later it is already backing down and going back on its key election promises. 
John Hayes talked about it not being a 1-year programme. Here is the really honest thing he said: “Mr English has been extremely ingenious in constructing this tax cut package.” It turns out he was a lot more ingenious than National members realised at the time because he never intended to go through with it; he was going to abolish the tax cuts anyway. John Hayes talked about the fact that it would be a pattern every year. Yet here we are not even a year in we are only 5 months in and National members are doing away with tax cuts already. 
Bill English talked about his tax cuts being prudent and responsible but he said they would give New Zealanders the kind of hand-up they need when they face the most challenging economic outlook in a generation. The economic outlook has become more and more challenging yet somehow we now do not need the tax cuts any more so they will be taken away. Clearly the Minister of Finance Bill English can have no credibility when it comes to any promises that National made prior to the election. We know that. 
Chris Tremain is sitting there. He talked about building trust. He said the National Government was delivering on its promises and it would continue to build that trust. I ask Mr Tremain to stand up and say how cancelling the tax cuts only 5 months after the Government legislated for them is building trust with New Zealanders. National members have not lived up to the trust they were given by New Zealanders on 8 November 2008. Helen Clark and Michael Cullen were dead right when they said that the National Party could not be trusted to deliver on its promises. Five months later John Key and Bill English are already backing down on the core centrepiece of their entire election manifesto. 
I notice that National members have suddenly gone very quiet. They are very embarrassed about being hauled up on their pre-election rhetoric. Every New Zealander will now know that the pledge card that National put out before the election is not worth the paper it was written on because there are 11 promises on it and the big red crosses here show that three of them have already been broken. We are not surprised about that because this is the party that promises whatever it needs to in order to get elected then does whatever it wants to once it gets into Government. If we look back to 1990 and the superannuation surcharge we remember it was going to go “no ifs no buts no maybes” but National increased it. At the last election National promised that it would deliver tax cuts every single year. National members said that unlike Michael Cullen’s tax cuts they would actually deliver them. It took them 5 months to break that promise. 
I go back to the book  
The Hollow Men 
 and to the advice those men received from a former Minister of Finance the Hon Ruth Richardson who said one must say whatever is required to get elected because in her own words “being in Government is everything.” Members can then do whatever they like to the people who voted to put them there and they do not have to worry about keeping any of their promises. Ruth Richardson said that. 
Today has been Crosby/Textor’s day has it not? Crosby/Textor practically could have written the Budget speech today—it probably did write the Budget speech today. It just goes to show that this Government has no principles. It had no intention of keeping its pre-election promises; it was always going to do whatever it felt like once it got into Government. 
National’s tax cuts were never affordable and Labour said that prior to the election. Yet John Key and Bill English ran up and down the country saying we were scaremongering when we said tax cuts were not affordable. They were going around the country telling everyone that they could have all the things they had under Labour but with tax cuts as the cherry on top. They said that everything would go on hunky-dory despite the fact that we were already in recession prior to the election. The world financial crisis had already started prior to the election. In fact let us go back and read the  
Hansard 
—I have it here in front of me. We can see from the  
Hansard 
 that the National Government used the world financial crisis as the justification for its tax cuts when it passed them on 8 December last year only 5 months ago. Yet suddenly here we are back under urgency repealing them again. National members’ arguments have gone completely full circle. They are now saying the world financial crisis is the reason for not delivering tax cuts. Five months ago it was the reason for delivering tax cuts and 5 months later it is the reason for taking the tax cuts away again. 
This Government has absolutely no credibility when it comes to keeping its promises. Effectively the last general election can be summed up in three words: the Key con. That is what it was; that is what all of the National Party’s manifesto promises amounted to. They were nothing more than a con that the National Party had absolutely no intention of sticking to. It was an absolute fraud on the New Zealand people. The National Party had no intention of keeping any of its promises and the tax cut situation absolutely sums that up. New Zealanders were promised tax cuts each year. As Darren Hughes said the pledge card with John Key’s name on the front and his signature underlining his commitments to the people went to every letterbox in the country. The pledge card said: “If National is elected to lead the next Government I personally guarantee that we will:”—pledge No. 1—“Strengthen the economy increase after-tax incomes and ensure Kiwis can get ahead under their own steam by reducing personal taxes on 1 April 2009 1 April 2010 and 1 April 2011.” Yet the tax cuts are gone; National has delivered on only one-third of that promise and the rest of it is gone. It just goes to show that none of the National Party’s pledges are worth the paper they are written on. 
The Hollow Men 
 theory prevailed during the election campaign with National members promising whatever they liked. I am reminded of one of the emails I read about in  
The Hollow Men 
. It was from one of Don Brash’s advisers and it talked about splashing the cash around before the election. It said that he had to throw some cash around to get people to vote for him. He would not need to worry about keeping promises after the election because by then he would be firmly ensconced on the Treasury benches. He would be able to do whatever he liked to Kiwis and they would not be able to do anything about it. It has taken only 5 months and boy oh boy are those members looking smug and arrogant already! It has been done in record short time. They are laughing about the fact that they are taking away the centrepiece of their pre-election manifesto—the centrepiece of their promises to New Zealanders—which was to give tax cuts every year under a National Government. John Key signed his name to that and said he personally guaranteed it. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I think Bill English told him to do that. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh Bill English probably told him to do that because he is the one who is pulling all of the strings here. Maybe Steven Joyce is pulling a few of the strings as well. It is a battle royal between Steven Joyce and Bill English as to who should be the Minister of Finance. They do not want John Key to have any credibility.