Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. Here's what this bill does: it gives very modest tax cuts to obscure the fundamental unfairness of our economy and our tax system. Just to lay that out and lay it there for all who may be following along at home: we had about a year ago a report from the IRD which told us that the top 311 families in this country hold more wealth combined than the bottom 2.5 million New Zealanders. [Interruption]SPEAKER: No sorry. Don't mean to interrupt the member but discussions need to be quiet and not audible. Please carry on.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: Thank you Mr Speaker. To that effect the subsidiary papers from both Treasury and IRD spoke to the fact that this is not an accident: it is a consequence of a tax system that sees those at the top pay an effective tax rate less than half of that of the average New Zealander.I recall a few years ago actually in this debating chamber as we were debating I believe the introduction of the new top tax bracket at $180000 that I had an interjection a heckle thrown at from the Hon Andrew Bayly who said that there is such a thing as legitimate tax avoidance. That has rung in my head every single time that we have come to debate tax in this House because that is what we do here. We set in place rules that enable people—particularly at present those at the top—to arrange their affairs in such a way as to avoid paying their fair share of tax.What was one of the first things that this Government decided to do—under urgency no less—just before Christmas? Well it was to repeal the underlying legislation that enabled that reporting which gave us that data which showed us how unfair the tax system is. It's almost like they've got something to hide.So the question needs to be: what cost do these modest tax cuts come with? The reality is that they come at the cost of more expensive public transport across New Zealand; they come at the expense of prescription fees for New Zealanders; they come at the cost of lower-quality school lunches. If the trajectory of decisions from this Government follows conservative decisions in the past we'll effectively be starving the school lunches programme to be able to in future argue that it is ineffective and then cut the funding for it. Mark my words.These tax cuts also come at the cost of cancer drugs which the Government also campaigned and promised would be delivered but they have decided to fund these trickle-down tax cuts instead. These tax cuts cover the cost of climate action and I find no tiny bit of irony in the fact that the revenue Minister also happens to be the Minister of Climate Change proposing this knowing that it comes at the cost of the integrity of the emissions trading scheme—i.e. the very system that this Government is placing all of its eggs in the basket of in order to drag down our emissions curve. It also comes—these trickle-down tax cuts— at the expense of pest-free Aotearoa.It's not too hard to fire up the shredder but it is difficult to confront the dual crises of inequality and the climate crisis and to deal to them with evidence and the policy that is necessary to confront both of those crises. The sentiment that I have heard out there from New Zealanders—and all of us would have seen news reports—is that these tax cuts for most people: yeah they feel better than nothing but that they mean absolutely nothing in the face of costs going up.So this Government is also simultaneously making decisions to increase costs notably by some of the decisions that they've made in these trickle-down tax cuts. That $2.9 billion tax cut for landlords—guess what? Our central bank says that that is only going to serve to drive up the cost of housing. We also have some analysis from Treasury that shows that this Government's decisions are going to increase the costs of rent.It's also going to come at the cost of our long-term challenges not only the climate crisis but the $200 billion hole that we face in our infrastructure deficit. That is not even starting on the child poverty report because I think this is a really really important question to put across to members of the three Government parties today. I'd encourage them to look into this four-page mockery of a child poverty report and to look to the final page on page 4 where it shows us a graph—the second graph there—of after housing costs and the measure and the metric for child poverty as a result of the decisions that this Government is making namely their tax changes; their trickle-down tax cuts.What this shows us—and I really really really hope that the Government members reflect on this because we all often say when we're having debates in this place that the reason that we come here is because we all apparently believe in the same things: we all apparently believe in the same values we all apparently believe in ending child poverty we just disagree about how to get there. What this graph bears out on page 4 of this child poverty report is that as a result of Government decisions that more children will be in poverty as a result of the Budget that they are passing and the legislation that they are passing through under urgency of which these trickle-down tax cuts are a part.Not only that but they've also decided to slip in increases for costs to those who go overseas with student loans in the form of their interest rates. They've also—and this is a really interesting one that was teased out through committee of the whole House—through their FamilyBoost measure can in no way shape or form guarantee that the gap is not going to be filled with for-profit providers simply price gouging. I'd also note that ACT Party members: your deputy leader decided to throughout the election campaign rail against this FamilyBoost policy for exactly that same reason. That can be found in the media archives.Mr Speaker 63000 New Zealand children woke up in poverty today. What these trickle-down tax cuts are going to do amidst the backdrop of a Budget which continues to entrench a deeply unfair and unequal economy is make more children poor. I find it really interesting as well if we flick through to page 2 of this incredibly light child poverty report: it says here in the second paragraph under the Government's approach to child poverty a key driver of child poverty is living in a benefit-dependent home. Causation is not correlation and correlation is not causation. Indeed there absolutely is a correlation between the fact that children living in poverty do overwhelmingly live in benefit households. But the reality of the situation is that the reason that those children are in poverty is because we force those in benefits to live in poverty.So I'd just asks us to unpack actually the very notion of child poverty which is a really interesting rhetorical device used by those in the social sector to campaign for our country to care about poverty as an issue. Because it just so happens to be the case that we don't tend to empathise with adults in poverty; it seems to be contrary to the notion of the hard-working New Zealander—every politician's favourite voter—because it is the case that we are quite comfortable in this place under successive Governments punching down and blaming people for living below the poverty line.At the end of the day all this Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill delivers for us is trickle-down tax cuts that continue to entrench a deeply unfair and deeply unequal society and economy which the Government knows and has the data and the evidence—that they promised us they would care about—will put more children in this country into poverty as a result of their decisions. Frankly I think that that is something to be ashamed of.I would also reflect on the fact that the finance Minister in many of the papers released alongside the Budget cherry-picked statements from the IMF and the OECD in order to rationalise Budget decisions. But she intentionally neglected the top-line ask—the plea—from both of those international entities for our Government and our country to sort out our tax system; to finally once and for all put a tax on capital gains so that we level the playing field so that we stop seeing money ploughed into unproductive assets namely housing.Unfortunately what we see here today in this Budget from this Government is no ambition no aspiration next to no meaningful evidence base for anything that they're doing. In fact if they were to look at the evidence they'd see that it's making those in this country far worse off. For that reason the Greens cannot support it.