English Bill: Motions — Family Support Tax Credit—Increase 
English Bill: Motions — Family Support Tax Credit—Increase 
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Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I want to remind anyone who is listening just what an unprecedented event it is that we are dealing with here today. I have been in this House for—[ 
Interruption 
] There is no record of the Government finding itself with so little legislative business that the Minister of Finance has put down his own notice of motion—[ 
Interruption 
] 
I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The last speaker was heard in relative silence and I would ask for the same courtesy. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member but that was not actually true. At times it was really hard to hear the last honourable member. But I would remind all members in the House to please keep the level down. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I will start again. The action that the Government has taken today is unprecedented—[ 
Interruption 
] 
I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Standing Orders are clear about interjections. They are to be rare witty or to the point. Since I started speaking the interjections have been constant. I do not mind interjections but I object to a constant barrage. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member but the previous speaker had constant interjections and there was no objection. Certainly it is easy to hear the member. I remind members that if we had interjections only when they were rare and witty we would have none whatsoever. So would the member please continue. It is a matter of debate. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I want to bring to the attention of those who are listening what an unusual procedure this is. The Minister of Finance has never in this Parliament put down a notice of motion of this kind to be debated. The reason we are debating this motion is not because it is a normal debate of the House and not because it is a snap debate or a general debate; it is because the Government has the shortest least-substantial legislative programme that any Government has had in living memory. The legislative programme fits on one page. Almost all of it has the agreement of the Opposition. We are debating this today because the Government has no vision no plan no energy no legislative programme and—more concerning for the Government—no support. 
Last week Dr Cullen came out and said he wanted an urgency motion to deal with the Government’s anti-smacking bill. What happened then was again unprecedented. In full public view the minority parties pulled apart the Government majority. That was a public exposition of what is going on behind the scenes. The reason the Government has no legislative programme is because it cannot get the support of its supporting parties. When a Government does not have the support of its supporting parties it runs the risk of stopping being the Government because the Government has to carry a majority in this House. 
The Government has now been christened by the media as a “lame-duck Government”. We had a speech from the Minister of Finance who is a lame duck and he will be replaced by a lame duck— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Mallard. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
:—Mr Mallard. What will the Government do next? It now has a “smacking bill” that it is backing over which it has no legislative control. I would not mind betting—in fact I think I know— 
Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The deputy leader of the National Party has now been speaking for 5 minutes on Government motion No. 1 which asks that the House endorse the family support tax credit increase of $10 per week per child that comes into force on 1 April 2007. But the member has not made any reference at all in his speech as to whether he supports that measure. Indeed his speech has not centred around that motion at all. I would have thought that now he is halfway through his speech we could hear from him as to whether he is in favour of the motion put down by the Minister of Finance. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes the member has had a long introduction. So perhaps he could address the motion. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Speaking to the point of order I point out that the parliamentary procedure we are involved in today is almost without precedent. It is absolutely within the capacity of someone speaking such as myself to discuss why we are debating Government motion No. 1. In the time you have been Speaker this has never happened. In the time Jonathan Hunt was Speaker this never happened. In the time Doug Kidd was Speaker this never happened. In the time Peter Tapsell was Speaker this never happened. In the time Robin Gray was Speaker this never happened. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: This is a point of order the member is speaking on. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Madam Speaker are you ruling me out? Am I prevented from talking about why we have the motion? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I did not interrupt you when you were speaking. A point of order was raised drawing attention to the substance of the motion. I was merely putting to the member that he should at some point in his speech address that motion. Would the member please proceed. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I will address the motion but not before pointing out to the House that the reason the Government does not have any legislation of any significance on the programme is because essentially it has done what it came to do. There is nothing more for the Government to do. That is why Dr Cullen is now indulging himself in these speeches of high principle. Labour is now developing a martyr complex. It knows that electoral death is looming and it wants to go down feeling principled about it. 
Let us come to the motion. On 1 April families will get $10 per child per week. In fact the Working for Families package is remarkably similar to the package that National put forward in 1996. National’s package increased family support for beneficiaries and working families and it brought in the child tax credit. It was attacked then by Dr Cullen as “a simplistic tangle of bigotry and ignorance … unholy product of National’s deeply held view that everyone on a benefit is a bludger … ill thought through and punitive.” Well he has changed his mind. 
We are not going to roll back this tranche of Working for Families. We are not going to deprive those families of the cash benefits they can get. Have they not waited so long? That is why I get irritated with Dr Cullen’s crocodile tears today. He has had 7 years of the biggest surplus New Zealand has ever seen and it took until today before he said—[ 
Interruption 
] Well 12 months ago he said that the people who had loyally voted for him every year could have it. Then there were his crocodile tears about the minimum wage. I want to ask the members opposite this question. If they think the poor and low paid are so badly done by why is it that in the health sector they have left the lowest paid on the lowest pay? Why is it that the home-care workers and the rest home workers have had nothing but the high-income specialists—the high-income medical specialists—have had 20 to 30 percent pay increases? Why does the member for Otaki not get up and tell us that? 
The problem with this package—[ 
Interruption 
] Oh now they feel guilty about leaving the home-care workers on $11.50 and putting the specialists on $300000. Well I bet the home-care workers will never forget that. They will never forget it. So much for the principled martyrdom of Dr Cullen who has gone off to draft a speech for his very last Budget. 
The problem with this Working for Families package is twofold. In 1996 National’s package was intelligent because it increased payments to families but dropped core tax rates. That meant that people’s marginal tax rates did not go up much which meant they still had an incentive to do another hour’s overtime because they did not face marginal tax rates of 60c and 65c. People on the Working for Families package who do another hour’s overtime lose at least 60 percent of their extra dollar and that is what is wrong with this package. 
We will not vote for this motion because if the Government had developed an intelligent package that phased in overtime it would have lowered core tax rates so that families were not punished by having most of what they earn in an extra hour taken off them. National will not roll back these payments but neither will we support a Government programme that has put hundreds of thousands of middle New Zealanders who are on incomes of up to $100000 on the highest marginal tax rates they have faced in 20 years. 
But the most important thing that has happened today is that the Government has effectively ended its term as a Government. It has run out of legislation. The pot is now so dry that the Minister of Finance had to move his own motion which has never been done so that he could have a debate on it. Why? It was to take up time. This is March. We have almost a whole parliamentary year ahead and the Government has nothing to do. That is electoral death. 
The one thing they do have to do is the smacking bill and the member for Otaki is getting smacked in his electorate for doing that—so is the member for Northern Maori and the United Future and New Zealand First members. How will they survive the smacking bill? How can they possibly lend support to a Government when that piece of legislation is obliterating their party base? If United Future and New Zealand First want to go down with Labour that is fine but I would say as a member who thinks that sometimes those parties are quite sensible: “Don’t do it. Do not go down with a Government that will drag you to certain electoral death.” I invite those parties to vote against this motion as well. This is a Government that has done what it came to do; it is time for it to go.