Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): There we go. That is as much as the National Government is really committed to this. That was a sort of half-baked speech from a Minister the Hon Jacqui Dean who could not even get the beginning of it right.Hon Jacqui Dean: Oh don't be harsh!GRANT ROBERTSON: Don't be harsh." says Jacqui Dean—paid the big bucks to just get out the motion but could not quite do it.The package that the Government has put up in terms of helping low and middle income people—you can divide it into seven. One-seventh of it is the accommodation supplement changes. They are alluded to at the start of this bill in the explanatory note. What this is is a necessary payment to people struggling under housing stress struggling in a housing crisis. It is actually an admission of failure by the Government because what it means is that the housing crisis has got so out of control that it has had to come in with an emergency payment. It is the classic ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approach from this Government. So the Government has come in and it is needed and it is necessary.Let us make sure we get on record though that the accommodation supplement is a deeply flawed instrument. It is effectively a subsidy for landlords and when Labour leads the next Government we will be reviewing that and trying to make sure we get a much fairer system. But right now today that one-seventh of the Government's package is necessary and we could support that.There is another seventh of it that is about Working for Families changes. I think everybody in this House recognises that if you want to get money to working families directly and make sure that working families are the people who benefit the most from a package that is how you do it because that is the system. It is a tax credit system and you can target it.So in the Government's package one-seventh of the $370 million next year is for Working for Families. While on this side of this House we do not support the changes to the abatement rates which squeeze Working for Families in a little bit more we do support the idea of simplification and we do support the idea of increasing some part of Working for Families payments. So that is two-sevenths.The other five-sevenths $1.9 billion next year is in tax cuts. These are tax cuts that are not about inflation adjustment and they are not about so-called bracket creep. They are a straight out election-year bribe—$1.9 billion of unfocused irresponsible tax cuts. They are unfocused because if they really were about supporting working people and low-income people then would we really have 800000 New Zealanders earning less than $14000 getting nothing? Would we really see a package where single people earning up towards $48000 a year get $1—$1 of benefit? Would that really be a package that was targeted and well-focused? It is not. It is all about Steven Joyce and his role as campaign manager for the National Party not as finance Minister for the National Party. Steven Joyce has come forward with this tax cut package designed totally for 23 September and not to actually support working families.But this is also irresponsible this tax package because there are people who pay for tax cuts like this. They are the parents who are sending their children to early childhood centres and then early childhood centres are coming back and saying: "We'd really like to have fully qualified staff in this centre. We'd really like to provide all the services that we can. But our funding has been frozen by the Government for years." And so they are paying for this tax cut because the National Government has not put in funding for that.This morning we have heard from GPs that as a result of a very tiny $9 million versus $1.9 billion tax cut—a $9 million increase for primary health care in this Budget—they are going to have to put their fees up. That will eliminate the tax cut benefit that is legislated for here for many New Zealanders.There is a cost to making tax cut changes. Tax cuts are spending. It is spending by any other name. Well on this side of the House we are absolutely clear. There are better priorities. There are more important things for New Zealand and New Zealanders than these tax cuts here because they are so unfocused and they are so poorly targeted.What we believe on this side of the House is that that $1.9 billion could go to making sure New Zealanders first-home buyers young New Zealanders get into the housing market. There was nothing much about housing in the Budget nothing to replicate Labour's KiwiBuild plan of actually building tens of thousands of affordable homes for first-home buyers to buy. That is not here in this Budget because the National Government has prioritised these tax cuts.The Government has got the wrong priorities and that is never more clear than when we look at another winter with more and more homeless New Zealanders—another winter where New Zealanders will look on in shame at the fact that there are families living in cars and garages and that there are young children trying to do their homework by torchlight in the back of a van. There is nothing in this Budget for those people.Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before kai time we were debating the Taxation (Budget Measures: Family Incomes Package) Bill. Grant Robertson was speaking and if he wishes he has 4 minutes and 11 seconds remaining.GRANT ROBERTSON: I would not deny members of the House and those watching another 4 minutes from me. When we broke for the lunch break I had characterised what had happened in this legislation as being the imposition of unfair irresponsible and poorly focused tax cuts and that is what they are. They are nothing to do with bracket creep changes; they are nothing to do with keeping up with inflation. They are plain and simple tax cuts aimed at an election year from a finance Minister acting as campaign manager for the National Party.This bill presented in front of us today has next year $1.9 billion worth of tax cuts and alongside that $373 million worth of support under Working for Families. It is of great regret to members on this side of the House that National members did not agree to the changes that we were proposing to make through this bill to allow the whole House to support the Working for Families changes because that is a way that this House could have shown to New Zealanders that we care about their prospects in the future that we are prepared to target our support to those who really really need it in the coming months and years. It is hugely disappointing to us that that was not taken up by National.The kind of Budget a Government delivers reflects the kind of country that it is looking to create and that is what to me is so sad about this piece of Budget legislation. It lacks any vision whatsoever for the kind of country New Zealand could be. It lacks any plan for how we grow good jobs with decent wages right across New Zealand. It has got none of that in it. There is nothing about how we help people adapt to the future of work and how we make sure that New Zealanders are well prepared as we enter that period. Instead what this legislation is about is a series of tax cuts that unfortunately are weighted towards upper-income earners and a small recognition of changes in Working for Families.I want to highlight two specific aspects of the bill that the Labour Party is particularly concerned about. The first of those is the changes in the abatement rates for Working for Families because while the National Government might be giving with one hand when it comes to increasing family tax credits in this it is taking with the other by lifting the abatement rate and lowering the threshold at which that kicks in. So essentially what that means is that the amount of money people get disappears faster under this system. It restricts the number of people who get Working for Families. It squeezes in on those families in terms of the benefits that they get and that is reflected in the out years of the Budget where overall spend on Working for Families declines. That is not the Budget of a party that is interested in giving all of those young families in New Zealand a chance.The second change is that of the abolition of the independent earner tax credit—that $10 a week $520 a year that has given a real boost to people in work to give them some extra support if they do not have children and if they do not get other benefits from the State. That is a mean-spirited change by this Government—a mean-spirited change—because in return those people get $11 worth of tax cuts in other words $1 a week in the hand. That is the mark of this Budget measure. It does not deliver to the people who need it most. It has been designed for the election year. Steven Joyce thinks it is clever politics; I do not think it is clever politics. I also do not think it is the right thing to do for New Zealand and on 23 September New Zealanders will get the choice to vote in a Labour Government that will deliver real benefits for families."