Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): I have been thinking about the title of this bill and I think that instead of titling this bill the Taxation (Budget Measures: Family Incomes Package) Bill it would be more accurate to title it the Taxation (Missed Opportunities) Bill" because what we faced this year coming into this Budget was a real opportunity.New Zealanders have worked hard; New Zealanders have sucked up a lot of downward pressure on their incomes over the last 9 years and here was an opportunity for this Government to actually do something about the problems that we face in our country and to do something to realise the opportunities that we have. The thing is you can do that through the tax system. The tax system is absolutely integral to people's incomes; it is absolutely integral to the economic signals that we send; it is absolutely integral to the way that people invest in our economy and behave. But this bill—and it is becoming typical of this Government—simply fiddles around the edges. So what are the problems that we face and how has this bill addressed them?Well let us look at some of the family income changes that are proposed in this bill. If we look at the core changes around the tax system this is where the rubber really hits the road: $1.9 billion of income tax changes in this package. It is five-sevenths of the total amount of money that has been reallocated within this package. But do you know what? For 35 percent of wage and salary earners earning under $48000 it delivers nothing. It gives something to every single wage and salary earner over $48000 but for those under $48000 35 percent of them receive absolutely no benefit from this. That is a missed opportunity because by the Government's own account those are the people who need support and who need a bit of backing but they are getting nothing. Worse than that we have got 3000 families—and this is in regulatory impact statement—who are actually worse off as a result of these changes. Well surely that is a missed opportunity as well given the surpluses that this Government has got to do something good with.In these changes we could have had a real focus on people's housing needs—a real focus on them. Instead we got a bit more money going into the accommodation supplement. But actually that does not even go near to making up for the fact that the accommodation supplement has been frozen for the 9 years of this Government. So the increases that the National Government is crowing about only go part way to filling up the fact that people have been receiving less of an accommodation supplement than they did 9 years ago. Nine years ago the average rent was $450; it is $690 now. None of these changes even combined in the best-case scenario go any way towards meeting that.As my colleague Kris Faafoi mentioned before there are huge missed opportunities in terms of looking at a fair distribution within our tax system in this bill. We know that there are inequities at the moment but what does this bill do? It actually makes them worse. Of that 1.9 billion—it is a lot of money—how much of it goes to people in the bottom half of income earners? It is the same amount as goes to the top 10 percent of income earners. That is the way that we are distributing income in this tax bill and that speaks to a massive missed opportunity to help those who really need it.Finally I turn to the commencement date. I really want to pick up on this because I have heard time and time again from the National speakers in this debate about what an important set of changes this is and how much difference it will make in people's lives. I can guarantee you that I can go back through Budget speeches and Budget bills year in and year out when this House has voted to bring changes in before the first of April next year. We heard from the Minister in the chair Paul Goldsmith: "Oh that is just the way that we normally do things." If this is so important and if you have got such a competent revenue Minister in Mrs Collins surely she could crack the whip and get IRD to take out the Working for Families family tax credit changes in here—which are good and are helpful with a few issues around abatement rates—and bring them in earlier as per Marama Davidson's amendment. That is one good and useful thing we could do and we have heard no explanation whatsoever from this Government about why those people have to wait a whole other year past the next election to get any relief from this bill. Thank you."