Shaw James: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3834. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green):I would like to speak to the commencement date as outlined in clause 2 of the KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill as well. I note that in my last call I asked Mr Woodhouse the Minister in the chair whether he would respond to a number of questions which he did not. One of them or in fact a couple of them relate directly to this clause which is the commencement date. What we know is that the Government has said that it wants to introduce this immediately and has taken the attitude that if you are not already currently enrolled in the scheme then the chances that you are ever going to get enrolled in the scheme are low to none and so what would be the harm in immediate commencement? We also know that there are people out there who have been thinking about it. We know from behavioural economics that there is a substantial tail of people for whom it is a complicated process and they would like to get round to it but they have not yet got round to it. The question is: why not just extend this out and have it commence at a later date in order to incentivise those who are currently not in the scheme but were kind of thinking about it to actually get into the scheme? Yes it would cost a little bit more money but if the intention here is to scoop up as many people as possible using the incentive then we ought to do that.I know that there are a number of amendments. There is David Clark’s amendment pushing the commencement date out to after the next election. There is also Fletcher Tabuteau’s amendment pushing it out by a couple of years. I take the Labour Party’s point—which I think is a valid one—that if you commence this bill immediately but not the rest of the hardship package until the beginning of the next financial year then there is a substantial gap there between the commencement of this cut and then the implementation of the benefit increases. Why not just line them up? Why not say: “Let’s commence this at the start of the next financial year.”? That gives people an incentive. If they are currently not in the scheme it says you have got 8 or 9 months to get yourself into the scheme. It makes perfect sense to do that and then after that the incentive will be gone. People will have had fair warning and at the same time you will have joined it up with the rest of your benefits package that you have been talking about.To me it makes perfect sense to do that. I have not yet heard anybody from the Government say anything about why it was chosen to have this immediate and retrospective commencement date and whether there was any consideration at all of any kind of zone where people who are currently not in the scheme could get into the scheme. I really would like a response to that. I notice that Simon Bridges has now taken the Government’s position in the chair and I have noted in previous debates that Mr Bridges has responded directly to these kinds of points so I would like to invite him to do so. I understand that the vote is going to go the way it is going to go but it would be nice to hear the Government’s reasoning in response to that point because I think it is a fair and valid one. Thank you.