Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): In my nearly 13 years in this place I thought I'd heard it all and then the Greens abstained. I am still picking myself up off the floor—that here we are with a consequential amendment to minimum family tax credits as a consequence of a very significant material increase in the incomes of our most vulnerable New Zealanders and the Greens can't support it. They can't even say aye to that. Surely this is Green Party whakapapa? Surely this is their raison d'être apart from saving the planet? It's about saving the people from the quagmire of poverty and they can't bring themselves to support it. I am staggered. I had thought I'd heard it all and then the Greens come along and surprise me once again.If the Tui beermakers want a number of billboards I think we heard a couple of doozy candidates from the Hon David Parker about how they have suddenly fixed the housing problem that the previous National Government had created! Suddenly because he said it's all over it's going to be fine! And actually that's consistent with the narrative because falling on the floor just a couple of minutes ago wasn't the first time today; the first time actually was when Grant Robertson in his Budget speech said something about house prices—because they're up 17 percent but these guys are going to magic them back down to 0.9 percent! There's a Tui billboard right there. And why is that relevant to this bill? It's because the reason we are here is that the costs for those vulnerable New Zealanders including dramatic increases in rent have necessitated quite large increases in their income support and this bill is a consequence of that.I think we're going to be on a treadmill because the benefit increases that the Government has announced in Budget 2021 were what was recommended to them to do two years ago before those dramatic increases in rentals before those significant increases in electricity prices and the other household expenses that struggling families are needing to find the money for. So we haven't got ahead of the curve; we're still well behind the curve and the policies of this Government are going to continue to make life difficult for these non-working New Zealanders. And the most difficult thing they're going to have to do is to try and find a job in an economy that thanks to this Budget there won't be enough of. This is a seriously unimaginative bland spend-and-hope Budget and we'll be back here probably having to palliative care the most vulnerable New Zealanders and increasing minimum family tax credits once again.And that's assuming the Budget projections for Crown revenue job growth economic growth and unemployment are actually met. I have little confidence. Because they made a really good announcement it probably dooms it to not being successful because if there's one thing this Government does it's announce and then fail—announce and fail. And I think they will fail to support our most vulnerable New Zealanders because they're putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and not implementing measures that will prevent them from falling off that cliff in the first place. Those measures would have been support for business for employing people for increasing the incomes of middle-income New Zealanders for reducing the tax burden—goodness knows we should be speaking today on a Taxation (Budget 2021 and Remedial Measures) Bill that actually remedied stuff around taxation because it's a bit of a misnomer; what's on the tin isn't actually what we're debating.But in the spirit of that National members will be moving amendments to this bill to take serious remedial measures. In the committee of the whole House we'll be suggesting what a really good taxation remedial measure should be and we'll be talking about them I'm sure after the dinner break.Dr James McDowall: Will you be supporting that?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: We are supporting that. Well we'll certainly be supporting our own amendments. That's an interesting question. But what we won't be doing is abstaining. And I hope the Greens can change their mind. They have time. There are two or three more votes to go. Perhaps they'll have a road to Damascus experience and realise that the very people that they claim to support are at least in part people who would benefit from this bill when it's passed. I'm gobsmacked. We will support it. I feel like a Green Party member at the moment!