Moroney Sue: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Moroney Sue: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18971] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 The Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill which we have in front of us and Part 2 in particular show just how much of a failure yesterday’s Budget was. We always expect to be debating taxation after a Budget and this bill allows for that debate. But if yesterday’s Budget was a fair Budget then we would be debating the $9.1 billion that was given away in tax cuts in the last Budget to the top 10 percent of wage earners in this country. I think everyone believes and knows that yes we are in tough fiscal times. The Government has not been able to grow the economy—it has not risen to that challenge—and we have very difficult fiscal times in New Zealand because of the economic mismanagement of the current Government. But we all accept that that is where we are. If that is the case and we all have to tighten our belts then why is it that this bill asks only hard-working New Zealand families to tighten their belts while the top 10 percent of wage earners continue to have $9.1 billion worth of tax cuts untouched even in these tough economic times. 
That goes to the basic unfairness of what this Government is doing. It means that the Prime Minister John Key gets to keep the additional $1000 a week that he got in last year’s tax cuts. That figure is more than some people earn a week but that is how much extra he got in tax cuts from last year’s Budget. He gets to keep that but hard-working New Zealanders get to pay for that Government’s folly by having their money for KiwiSaver cut in this Budget. Hard-working wage earners are the people who will suffer through this part of this bill because this part attacks KiwiSaver and Working for Families. 
It is absolutely clear by now that only a Labour-led Government can save KiwiSaver. This Government is not interested in saving KiwiSaver. Ever since this Government took office it has diminished KiwiSaver from every single angle it possibly can. The Government started off diminishing KiwiSaver by cutting its contributions in half from a 4 percent contribution down to a 2 percent contribution. Immediately on taking office this Government cut KiwiSaver in half. 
But not content with that the very next thing the Government did with regard to superannuation and the future of savings in this country was to immediately suspend payments and contributions from the taxpayer into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund which is the fund on which there was a multiparty agreement that we would continue to put money in in order to make sure that when we the baby boomers got to the age of receiving superannuation there would be enough money in the Government coffers to pay for that. Forward thinking by Michael Cullen had led to a multiparty accord to forward-fund the scheme so that there would be money in the scheme for all of us when as baby boomers we needed that money for superannuation. But this Government took the knife to that accord as soon as it took office. In respect of the multiparty agreement the ink was hardly dry when the new Government came into place and it broke that accord straight away. 
The Government’s record on superannuation is terrible and it continues with Part 2. The Government is saying that times are tough that it has not been able to get its act together that it has not been able to grow the economy and that it does not have the lift it has been promising now for 2½ years. The lift in the economy is still not with us so the Government has had to start taking the knife to Government spending. 
Where are the areas that the Government has chosen to cut? They have not chosen the area of tax cuts for very very high earners in this country—tax cuts for the wealthy. We will not hear any member of the Government any member on that side of the Chamber even mention the word. It is like not mentioning the war when those members pretend that people did not get those huge tax cuts in the last Budget. Although the Government pretends that everyone has to tighten their belts that certainly is not the case for all New Zealanders. For the vast majority New Zealanders are finding the current economic situation very very tough indeed.