Horomia Parekura: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Horomia Parekura: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
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Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 Mr Chair— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: A rare moment! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I can hear a gentleman burbling on the other side. He did not even know how to say no twice yesterday so the Minister of Finance took the question off him. That is what is happening with this Government. Its members are not too sure who is steering what or who is in charge of what. 
What is important is to make sure that we get this message across. I listened intently to Minister Dunne’s response. The previous speaker Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga should be ashamed because he knows what is going on in relation to Pacific people. Let us talk about the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia. It is flattening out at 20 percent. The effort in this bill is needed to ensure that incomes made there come home because since this Government has come into office for the top end of the exodus of people especially working-class people the gap has increased by 26 percent. When Labour was in Government members opposite kept on parroting about closing the gap. They said they would come up with a plan that would mend all of those relevant issues and ensure that people would stay in New Zealand. The group of people going to Australia is the largest in the last 34 years. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! It is a disgrace. 
That member over there has been going on about the increase in wages— 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I object to the member telling you to put it in your pipe and smoke it. I think the member should withdraw and apologise for making those comments about you. I believe that you do not even smoke Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The point of order is upheld in terms of the pronoun that the member used. I know that in times of passion members get a bit sloppy about that but the Chair is not to be brought into the debate. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I withdraw and apologise. Being a non-smoker myself I say thank goodness because the working class in this country is being punished. 
Let us talk about the rate rises. A farmer on the main road gets nothing. Do members know what they are told? They are told they have the use of the library and the swimming pool but nothing else. Worse still for Maori in Porangahau where that member over there comes from and whose family are well known in the sense of building sites and selling sections the rates are going up something unreal. How do we manage that? My colleague and neighbour Minister Tolley knows what I am about to say. In the sense of multiple-owned land Maori get nothing but they pay the same rates. It is an imbalance. I refer to the people in Porangahau who have lived there for years and years and those in Bayview in Napier who have lived there for years and years. That bloke over there says that everybody can afford the increase. Labour’s common-sense notion that we have a freeze until the end of the financial year is something that surely the Minister could support right now. That is the difference here. 
I turn to the increase in GST. Mr Foss argues that there will be an increase in the wages taken home. 
Craig Foss 
: Real wages. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Real wages. But when we go to the supermarket we find that costs have risen by 18 percent and the GST increase will make costs go up further. There is no rise in the minimum wage. The last time that group was in Government it took the minimum wage up by 52c or it might have been 58c. Labour took the minimum wage up nine times. That was alongside our clear economic plan which stabilised export productivity and ensured that farms on average were coming through at 19.9 percent in the sense of free returns at the top end. We made sure of that. What has happened now? It has jammed. The timber returns are real because of the world uptake. [ 
Interruption 
] This is relevant to GST I say to Mr Foss. He is supposed to be the finance brain. This is relevant to GST. 
Craig Foss 
: Well try and get to it. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: We are at it I say to Mr Foss and he should be ashamed that 40 percent of the people in Hastings are unemployed. How can he sit there pontificate and see people losing their jobs? In Auckland 150 jobs were advertised and 2700 people turned up for an interview. What does he have to say? He should get out to Maraenui get out to Flaxmere and see what is happening to the families. They cannot afford a whole lot of things. That member dared to suggest that this increase was not much of an increase. That is shameful and he knows it is; it is shameful. 
Craig Foss 
: 3 percent over 9 years is a terrible increase. It is a shocking shameful increase. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: But alongside it we had income-related rents—