Turia Tariana: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — First Reading Instruction to Finance and Expenditure Committee 
Turia Tariana: Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill — First Reading Instruction to Finance and Expenditure Committee 
[Volume:628;Page:215] 
TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
Tena koutou katoa. I rise on behalf of the Maori Party to speak to the Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill. We support this bill in light of the commitment to a full interest write-off for student loan scheme borrowers. We also support the expansion of the Working for Families package in the bill despite many concerns. 
We do however have very serious reservations regarding the need to respond to the most vulnerable—the poorest families and in particular the tamariki who are severely affected by the trauma of poverty. Our party supports the introduction of a full interest write-off for student loan scheme borrowers. We have consistently argued the need to respond to the huge number of past current and future tertiary students with loan debt. We believe that the $8 billion student debt is a huge barrier to learning for the next generation. If we are serious about supporting our rangatahi towards making a successful transition to parenthood homeownership financial security and community-mindedness we need to demonstrate the willingness of the State to invest in education as a public good. 
In particular our concerns are with the fact that Maori student debt is escalating at a greater rate than non-Maori student debt. This is due to a number of factors: a greater proportion of Maori are undertaking tertiary education—more than any other group; and a greater proportion of Maori students take out a loan reflecting socio-economics. Maori also earn significantly less than non-Maori after graduation—because of this repayment times for Maori are significantly longer and with accumulated interest they pay significantly more than non-Maori for their education. 
Although the interest-free loan scheme legislation will alter things and is a significant step in reducing the student debt crisis the fact still remains that more Maori will hold a debt and they will take longer to pay it back because they will earn less. Debt limits the ability to get credit for some of those things that we consider necessary to enable us to participate as citizens within Aotearoa—things such as a warm secure home. We support this bill being passed through as quickly as possible in order to ensure that students receive the vital support they require as soon as possible. It is my firm belief that education should be free and should be seen as an investment not only in our future but in the future of this country. 
I turn now to the expansion of the Working for Families package. The Maori Party is very pleased that the bill introduces additional targeted tax relief to 160000 working families. Although the size of the tax reduction will differ for different families it will average around $50 a week and there is no doubt that that will make a difference. 
Our concern however is for the many families and the children therein who will not receive the benefits of that package. The Maori Party recognises some very serious reservations in the effectiveness of this bill to offer relief to those who most need it—benefit-dependent families. The Working for Families package has targeted relief for those engaged in either part-time or full-time paid work. What this means in effect is that the expansion offers nothing to the 250000 poorest children in Aotearoa. That is despite the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that addressing child poverty should be a high priority for this Parliament. I am sure that the issue of child poverty will be of particular interest to the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples in his visit to New Zealand this week. 
We know that more than one in five children live in low-income families which is nearly twice the level of the late 1980s. If we were to see real child poverty addressed the Maori Party would expect to see a number of specific strategies in place. The strategies that we present include establishing a poverty line in Aotearoa and monitoring it with living standards assessments each year setting agreement on specific target dates to reduce child poverty and reviewing the child tax credit to ensure that children of parents whose income includes benefit assistance are also supported within the Working for Families package. 
 The poor are not responsible for being in poverty. They did not create the conditions in which they find themselves today. We need to consider that today’s political solution is an attempt to correct yesterday’s political solution which was in fact a failure but was at the time claimed to be the mother of all solutions. It is an indictment on both Labour and National Governments that besides inflationary adjustments core benefit levels have not changed since 1991. 
Our preference would have been for lower taxes for those families. We cannot understand why taxes are taken from a low-wage worker and then given back to them under another name. That creates the perception that this is a benevolent Government. This Government wants to present itself as caring for the working person yet it does not want to care for our poverty-trapped children of beneficiaries. All this package does is continue to entrap workers in welfare rather than give workers a sense of pride in saying: “We earned this money.” The Government’s redistributing of the tax denies the initiative entrepreneurship and creativity that should be rewarded by a higher working pay. Those who have only just escaped are actually being re-entangled back into the welfare net just as our old people use the hinaki to entrap a slippery slimy eel. Should not the focus be on helping people out of the net as opposed to what is currently being done which is trapping them back into that net? 
This whole package is designed to force beneficiaries to become the working poor—to join their many kith and kin whom my former colleague Parekura Horomia in referring to our people frequently says are the working poor. He knows that well because the wall of wood that was supposed to descend from the East Coast is actually a barrier to forestry workers earning a decent living wage while employed in a highly dangerous occupation. Their level of remuneration does not reflect the danger of the work they do and the Minister of Maori Affairs knows that. 
This is a war that is being waged on the poor. What hope is this Government offering to those who are more than willing to give a decent day’s work for a decent day’s pay? How will this Government explain to the many workers in this country that if they work hard they will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour when we all know that many people have worked hard? As my colleague and co-leader Pita Sharples stated in his maiden speech many of the hard-working people in his electorate can never afford a home in Kohimarama. How do we explain that away? 
Finally the Maori Party will support the Taxation (Annual Rates and Urgent Measures) Bill going through to the select committee where we hope that many of these issues raised today will be discussed in more depth.