Brownlee Gerry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Brownlee Gerry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:13496] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I think one of the things the Committee should first take note of is that even though this bill is the centrepiece of the Government’s Budget we have just completed Part 1 of the Committee stage of the debate and the Government is already making amendments to its legislation. This shows how poorly thought out this legislation is and that it is likely to be full of flaws and given that there is no immediate need for the appropriation to be made it shows that this bill should have gone to a select committee. 
Further coming to Part 2 “Taxation related amendments” there are some 40 pages in which a number of calculations spell out how this benefit will be delivered to people who previously thought they could look after themselves because they had a job. 
 This will have a number of mistakes in it. It is quite unacceptable that the Committee will be given the limited time of perhaps 2 hours to consider these 40 pages of calculations. I predict that within a very short period of time—possibly before the bill takes effect in October this year in April next year and in April 2007—the Government will have to come back to Parliament to correct it. 
I am amazed by the figures I see in these tax calculations. What it tells us is that there are an appalling number of New Zealanders on very low incomes. It tells us that this Government has squandered the opportunity to raise the living standards and incomes of New Zealanders over the past 5 years when New Zealand has experienced some of the highest commodity prices ever and has had very very favourable trading conditions and when the Government itself has been able to record very large surpluses. These figures are not significantly different from those introduced by a National Government for a similar sort of support back in 1998. 
It is a sad indictment on the Labour Government that it should be waving banners in front of people’s faces and saying this is “your Budget” when that statement is just a cynical laughing attempt to get a vote off them. I ask Mr Cunliffe the outgoing member for New Lynn how long he thinks it will be before the family displayed on the poster stating “Your Budget” sees one cent of it. He does not know. That is the problem we have here today. Even the Government’s own members do not know what the effects of this bill will be. They have been wheeled into a room by the Minister of Finance accompanied by the Minister for Social Development and Employment and told that this is a marvellous Budget that will deliver extra dollars into the hands of low-income New Zealanders whether they are in work or on a benefit and that we should be celebrating that. 
I want the Minister to confirm that the family on the poster stating “Your Budget” will not see a blind cent of that money prior to 2007. If he is going to stand up and say that it will then I hope he outlines the circumstances of that family so that we can all learn what the Government is planning. It seems to me that there is a great deal of cynicism about a poster that states “Your Budget”. Most people would say “If that’s my Budget then I’m being roundly abused. I am being asked to go to work every day to put in my 40 45 or 50 hours a week and at the end of it still be a State beneficiary.” New Zealanders will not buy that.