Wong Pansy: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:4910] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 It is easy to tell a National member of Parliament from a Labour one. The fine member Craig Foss is prepared to apologise to the officials because the Minister once again did a backroom deal with United Future and wasted all their hard work—and it was not even Craig Foss’s undertaking. One can tell. If it is a Labour Party member or the Prime Minister their stand is to never admit a mistake never apologise and never pay back. But a fine member like the National Party member Craig Foss would take it on the chin. 
I would like to raise two points under the purpose of the KiwiSaver Bill. The first one is that the purpose of the bill is: “to encourage a long-term savings habit and asset accumulation by individuals who are not in a position to enjoy standards of living in retirement similar to those in pre-retirement.” I wish the Minister would take a call to answer a question because there are members of the public out there—those who have just started work those who have to take two jobs and those who are working 7 days to make ends meet—who ask how they can enjoy their current standards of living. At their current standards of living how can they look ahead 20 or 30 years? 
 A lot of New Zealanders are not in the fortunate position of being able to plan for retirement. They actually struggle just to meet their current standard of living when there have been huge huge increases in the local body and council rates made because of central government giving local bodies all those additional responsibilities without giving them the funding to go with it. So it is hard to see how the Government can expect people to change their current behaviour when they are struggling to make ends meet. Just now when Gordon Copeland mentioned Singapore having a savings habit he neglected to mention that Singaporeans also have a much higher average wage compared with New Zealanders. It is just like Australia. 
The second point is even more interesting. It states that the purpose of the bill is to ensure savings habits so that those individuals can “… enjoy standards of living in retirement similar to those in pre-retirement …”. It is a big call to expect people to have standards of living similar to those they had before they retired. Actually I would invite my colleague Mr John Key to take a call in the next part because he is a self-made man. From nothing he built up a wonderful future for himself but how is John Key to ensure his after-retirement living standard will be similar to his standard of living now? Well if anybody were to lead New Zealand to achieve that I think that most New Zealanders would trust John Key to come up with a better KiwiSaver design than the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. 
Brian Connell 
: A “Key Saver scheme”. 
PANSY WONG 
: I think this is a great thing. I am sure that the public would have faith in a “Key Saver scheme” because John Key has proven that New Zealanders given the right tax relief and the right incentive to work hard can start to look at saving—not just because the Labour Government has decreed that they should save. 
I also add my concern to the worry that was raised by both Chris Tremain and Craig Foss—the hard-working National members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Once again the Labour Government is riding roughshod over the select committee. It is ignoring all the hard work of the select committee. Why bother sending this bill to the select committee for very careful consideration if the select committee consideration will then be ignored? I am surprised. United Future used to claim to be the party that was responsible and that would respect the select committee process.