Woolerton R Doug: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
Woolerton R Doug: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:4927] 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I think that if anybody wants an example of why the Finance and Expenditure Committee is such an interesting place they need only listen to that last speech from Craig Foss. As I said while in that committee—which is a committee I did not particularly want to be on; I regard it as a punishment as a matter of fact—I take a great deal of interest in looking across the table. I watch my National colleagues looking at these sorts of bills and money matters and I can just about hear the cash registers going “Chonk! Chonk!”. It is all very predictable. I admire these gentlemen but they have a one-track mind—financial investment at a very high level or in the case of Chris Tremain real estate. So the question is: what they are going to do—what are New Zealanders going to do—about bills and money matters? How can they avoid them? How can they leverage off them or get around them? Or how can they not pay them? Those are the questions that go through National members’ heads. 
I want to tell my colleagues in National yet again—and I suspect that this will be a recurring theme—that 98 percent of New Zealanders do not think that way. Ninety-eight percent of New Zealanders think about saving. They think about putting a little bit aside each week and each month and slowly building it up over the years. They are still trying to instil the habit of saving into their children and families. If—God bless them—some people can aspire to having a pool boy lawn boy tennis boy cleaner or all the things John Key takes as normal family add-ons in his life— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Doesn’t everybody? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Well exactly. As Maurice Williamson said: does not everybody? That absolutely explains why National members are not only opposed to this bill but why they cannot even get their heads around it. It is not about stacking up numbers or even about an algebra equation; it is about investing slowly for the long term and the future and about getting something in people’s psyche. 
National members also do not mention that the bill can be changed. A person can make a joint contribution of 4 or 8 percent. They can go along with that give notice and go back down again. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Is this a leadership bid? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: No it is certainly not that! They can put some money into a mortgage diversion scheme. They can do all of those things. The problem that National has at this point is that it has Mr Auchinvole saying that the first thing a person should do is pay off the mortgage—which is pretty straight-line financial advice—but then it has John Key saying that he would not advise people to do that and that he would advise them to take out the $1000 or whatever it is. So there is a conflict in the reasons why National is opposing this bill. 
In actual fact this bill will allow people to do all those things that National members are talking about. If it is an advantage for people to put some money into the mortgage diversion scheme they will do that. If it is to their advantage to put in 8 percent instead of 4 percent they will do that. They can change up and they can change down. But behind all of that is the fact that it is in people’s interest to stay in the scheme. They can get out of the scheme but it is in their interest to stay in it. I suggest to members that people in New Zealand—average New Zealanders—will be encouraging their children to join the scheme to stay in the scheme and to take advantage of the options the scheme offers.