Key John: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
Key John: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:633;Page:4920] 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 I want to go back if I may to the issue of mortgage diversion and talk about that for a minute. Some New Zealanders may be considering going into KiwiSaver and it is important they understand a few things. The first is that if they want to have mortgage diversion so they put their money into KiwiSaver and decide to elect to have mortgage diversion they cannot do that for 12 months. That is the first thing. 
The second thing is rather interesting and the Minister might want to check this with her officials or take a call on this herself. She may know the answer. In Michael Cullen’s Supplementary Order Paper 52 from memory clause 194A states: “The Minister of Finance may make a recommendation under subsection (1) only if the Minister is satisfied that a mortgage diversion facility that is provided … (a) there is no compulsion on providers to provide a mortgage diversion facility:”. There is no compulsion. That is interesting. 
So people may sign up for KiwiSaver and be one of the low-income New Zealanders whom Mr Woolerton thinks the National Party does not understand. But he is wrong because many of our supporters are aspirational New Zealanders who want to do better and want to pay less taxes. They are New Zealanders who do not want to be booted off Pete Hodgson’s waiting list. They are New Zealanders who do not want to have $882000 stolen from them to buy an election. They are New Zealanders who do not support Taito Phillip Field rorting his electors and running a cash business in his office. They are New Zealanders who are sick of seeing Helen Clark breaking the rules whenever she wants. They are New Zealanders who thought that an election spending cap meant that a party stuck to it. They are New Zealanders who thought that when they signed up to a Prime Minister who said that she was going to set new standards that did not mean she would take $882000 because her party was down 3 percent in the polls and spend whatever it took. Those people are decent hard-working New Zealanders and they support National because they understand what we are all about. But now they are thinking that under mortgage diversion they will be able to divert something into their mortgage but lo and behold here we have a little clause in the bill that says there is no compulsion on providers to provide a mortgage diversion. 
No wonder the 71 submissions we heard on the bill did not talk about mortgage diversion. That is right it was not on the agenda last week when we had a Government that was not in a complete freefall in the polls. Was it not interesting I might add when I spoke in the general debate? I pointed out to Trevor Mallard that the polls were going south for Labour. Trevor Mallard looked at me as Pete Hodgson is now and said: “No no they are going up.” Well that is not what we found out on  
Agenda 
 on Saturday morning. The UMR Insight poll—Labour’s pollsters—only 4 weeks ago had Labour three points out in front because I saw it which was very interesting. Two weeks ago when mortgage diversion was not even on the agenda Labour was four and a half points behind. Now it is more than four and a half points behind. [ 
Interruption 
] 
So no wonder Mark Gosche is giving a longer speech than I am and I am on my feet. Mark Gosche knows that $882000 of taxpayers’ money was paid to prop up not only his re-election but for goodness’ sake Taito Phillip Field’s re-election. Labour used taxpayers’ money to do that. Labour members are very quiet over there; they know that mortgage diversion may not apply to these issues. I find that very interesting and I think New Zealanders will find it very interesting when they have a look at this legislation. 
The real truth is that KiwiSaver is the same as any savings scheme and that means that people will engage in savings schemes if they are matched by an employer. We know that. The take-up rate in schemes such as the State Sector Retirement Savings Scheme is about 47 percent I think from last memory and that is matched dollar for dollar up to 3 percent. So the real issue here is: will employers embrace KiwiSaver? That is the only question one has to ask. Because if they will embrace KiwiSaver then I agree that more New Zealanders will actually take up the savings pledge. I agree with that. 
My question for the Government is in its rush to get Taito Phillip Field and its $882000 of theft off the front page why did it not do something to make the scheme more attractive to employers? Because the Government has made it slightly more attractive to employees—it has got rid of the specified superannuation contribution withholding taxes so employees get the full benefit going in—but there is no change for an employer. If last week an employer was putting $1000 into an account over the course of a year and $300 was going to the Government for withholding tax and $700 was going into the account now $1000 will go into the account. So that is good for employees they are happy but the employers have no benefit.