Harawira Hone: Income Tax Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Income Tax Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11226] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. In considering policy the Maori Party always likes to give consideration to the view that everything has a whakapapa a genealogy including this Income Tax Bill. Perhaps we might want to consider this bill’s parentage and even consider the possibility of doing something to reduce the retard factor brought about by too much inbreeding between Labour and National by introducing some strong fresh positive new genes from the mighty Maori Party. 
The major question I have been asking myself while reading every single page of this 2700-page bill is: why does income tax legislation have to be so goddamn complicated? This is where the history of this bill becomes so interesting because the bill’s purpose states that the key aim of the rewrite project is to reduce compliance costs by producing tax legislation that is clear uses plain language and is structurally consistent. It says that clear legislation makes an important contribution to increasing voluntary compliance with tax laws because it makes it easier for readers to identify and observe their income tax obligations. That is all well and good but we could shorten that by saying that the bill’s purpose is: “Making the law clear so that people will hopefully pay their taxes.” 
I tell you Mr Assistant Speaker that tax clarity is hardly a topic of hot discussion in my electorate let alone the complex jungle of new terms that this bill uses to try to make it so-called easier to understand. Let us take family support for example. When my wife and I were bringing up our kids back in the 1970s and 1980s we could get the family support and/or the guaranteed minimum family income. There were two different terms for two different sorts of payments. Now my kids are having children and are confronted with a barrage of terms all of them in this bill. These terms include family scheme tax credit child tax credit family assistance credit family plus family credit abatement in-work payment family support family tax credit parental tax credit social assistance payment and family scheme income. All these terms mean completely different things. The three most well-known are probably family support family tax credit and in-work payment. But this bill has changed them all again. Family support becomes family tax credit family tax credit becomes minimum family tax credit and in-work payment becomes in-work tax credit. So having gone from two payment types to 11 we now find that some of them have been reworded. The Government talks about people getting off benefits but people have simply lost touch with which benefits they are supposed to be eligible for and are not getting them any more. I remind the House that the purpose of the rewrite project was to make the legislation clear. Imagine how bad it would be if the purpose had been to make it complex! 
I would like to take a look at the in-work payment as yet another example of Labour’s “Tale of Two Ditties”. One of the ditties that Labour likes to warble on about is how it promotes fairness for all. But last night Labour was pushing for a provision that is a contradiction of that in supporting a blatant discrimination in the “Young Slave Rates Bill” that will see young workers get only 80c to every $1 for adult workers. 
Again in contradiction to its claim of fairness for all Labour has just introduced a Working for Families package that clearly discriminates against those families most in need. In fact this particular matter made me think about something so I went back and looked at Charles Dickens’  
A 
Tale of Two Cities 
 where he says: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness … it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair we had everything before us we had nothing before us we were all going direct to Heaven we were all going direct the other way.” That is exactly what this Income Tax Bill reminds me of. The Labour Government crows about helping to eliminate child poverty in the world yet in its own backyard it has withheld just under $3 billion from the nation’s poorest children by a deliberate discrimination in the form of the in-work payment. 
I note that despite Labour protesting when it was in Opposition against National’s version of the child tax credit—the first policy to discriminate directly against the children of beneficiaries—and despite promising that it would change the policy when it became the Government it took Labour 6 years before it actually introduced Working for Families. Then to add insult to injury Labour chose not to extend the child tax credit to children of beneficiaries. Instead it selected only “worthy families” to qualify for the in-work tax credit. 
That means that for the 250000 children discriminated against by Labour’s “Ditty of Depravation” this is indeed the worst of times the age of foolishness and the long winter of despair. It seems patently clear that the point of discrimination in the Working for Families package is to punish the unworthy poor—those who would dare to be on benefits and accident compensation. But the pain is all for the children. It would cost only $450 million to extend the in-work payment to the parents of beneficiary children but instead that money stolen from the poorest homes is propping up this Government’s coffers as surplus and is now being re-routed to those individuals who can afford to participate in KiwiSaver. 
The Government calls this “justifiable discrimination”—get that! Ripping-off the poor is now called justifiable discrimination. The Child Poverty Action Group says that passing laws that impact negatively on the health and well-being of children can never be considered justifiable. It points out that the income tax provisions that mean that some people will not get the in-work payment because they are on a benefit are the basis of the group’s discrimination case against the Attorney-General which charges that such discrimination is directly in breach of the Human Rights Act and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. 
The Maori Party believes that the fruit of economic growth should mean a more equitable distribution of wealth through wages and benefits. We want to raise the standard of living of all individuals in Aotearoa especially those on low incomes. We support the idea that New Zealand should maintain and raise its international competitiveness as long as it is measured against a reliable genuine progress index. We also want tax reductions driven by improved efficiencies in the public sector. We want to ensure that tax revenues and Government expenditure result in acceptable surpluses. We want our nation’s focus to be on redistribution of wealth so that everybody has enough income to participate fully in his or her community and in society. We want legislation that reflects the best of times the age of wisdom and the spring of hope. This Income Tax Bill clearly does not reflect that philosophy so the Maori Party will be voting against it. Tena koe.