Bennett Paula: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Bennett Paula: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:628;Page:763] 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I want to talk about the Working for Families part of the Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill and I admit to having some real problems with it. My predominant concern is that it is Labour’s interpretation of what it means to be a family. How does the New Zealand public feel about the description of “working families” that Labour has termed under this bill? 
The bill states that tax relief will be delivered to working families via enhancements to the Working for Families package. Labour has stated that it has targeted tax relief to 160000 working families. But they can be called families only if they have dependent children of a certain age and if they fit certain criteria. And yes those criteria are set by the Labour Government which defines what “family” means and decides who gets to have the targeted tax relief. In order to receive this benefit one needs to have dependent children. That is an insult to all working people without dependent children. What about young people who are trying to save in order to establish themselves financially before establishing a family? What about single people without children? What about those whose children have grown up and who are now saving for their retirement? All working New Zealanders deserve to have tax relief. 
Let us look at an example of how discriminatory this bill is. The example is that of an average company in Auckland where there is a small team of employees who do pretty much the same job and produce the same level of outputs and results for that company but who have very different personal circumstances. One employee has two children aged 7 and 10 and both she and her husband are on average incomes. One employee has been working for 30 years and has three adult children. That couple has had the good times and the struggles and is now at the stage of saving for retirement. The other employee is in a same-sex relationship has never had children and intends to never have children. Who is being discriminated against? This Government which purports to ensure that there is equality and spouts on about equality for all is blatantly discriminating against those who do not have dependent children. That is wrong. 
 This tax relief makes beneficiaries out of normal everyday working New Zealanders who are trying to get ahead and just want to be given a fair deal. It blatantly ignores those without dependent children who are working equally hard and just want to get ahead. We received many letters during the campaign period from people who supported our across-the-board tax cuts. Those people stated they would sit next to someone in their working environment who would be doing the same job with the same effort and through the Working for Families targeted tax relief each person would receive extremely different levels of income in his or her pocket. That is what targeted relief does. It discriminates against those without dependent children. It is not fair and not equal. Universal tax cuts across the board are the only way to support the New Zealand public and incentivise people to get ahead. 
This bitsy legislation which caters only to a minority of New Zealanders is simply not fair. The only way to deal with people fairly is by lowering taxes across the board. For example a tax rate of 19 percent for people who earn between $38000 and $50000 would incentivise those people to work harder and move ahead and would put more money into their pockets so that they could choose how to spend it.