King Annette: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3823. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour):I have to say we started off this morning with a very spirited debate from the members opposite defending the indefensible. I have to say it was such a good start that the Minister who is in charge of this bill the Hon Todd McClay did not know he was in charge of it and tried to move it in somebody else’s name.We have had to listen this morning to National members sitting opposite crowing about how great they have been to beneficiaries and the payback is because they are going to take it off KiwiSaver. They said: “We are the first Government in 43 years to give money to beneficiaries.” What they forget is that they were the first Government in 43 years to cut the benefits to beneficiaries—to cut the benefits to beneficiaries. They have forgotten about Ruth Richardson and the “mother of all Budgets”. That has all been glossed over. When we brought in Working for Families that was communism by stealth! Have they got rid of it? No they have not. They just fiddle around the edges of it. When we brought back income-related rents which helped those on the lowest income they opposed it. When we brought in 20 hours of free early childhood education they opposed it. The one that I really like because we have had to listen hour after hour to Paula Bennett speaking on it is that we kept the training incentive allowance to help people get off the benefit but she took it for herself and then canned it. This is another example of National members taking what they can for them and taking it off others. That is exactly what is happening with KiwiSaver today.I wonder whether National has any idea of how many people under 18 have signed up to KiwiSaver. The latest figure we have got from 2013 is 352600 young people under 18 have signed up to KiwiSaver. So we have got young people signing up. Why were they signing up? Not because they were necessarily in work; most of them were not. They signed up because they had the incentive of the $1000 that was going to be there for them to build on when they became KiwiSaver contributors. They had the $1000.What National has forgotten is that there are going to be more babies born. It is just a fact of life. There are going to be about 60000 children born every year in New Zealand in the foreseeable future. They might have wanted to join up to KiwiSaver. Maybe their parents might have liked to join them up to KiwiSaver. I challenge the members opposite—just one of them—to say that they did not sign their children up to KiwiSaver. Well I wonder whether the member himself took the $1000 for KiwiSaver. Would he like—[Interruption] He cannot remember. Well that is always a sign that you did. So he cannot remember.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I did.Hon ANNETTE KING: Oh he did take it. So why would the Minister in the chair take $1000 for himself and deny it for future generations for our kids for those who have not yet joined KiwiSaver? It is a pretty mean-spirited approach.Government members say we have to do this to pay for the beneficiaries. Are we not generous? Well just go back and think National members. If you had not given billions of dollars away in tax cuts to the wealthiest which included everybody in this Committee you would have money to give to beneficiaries you would have money to invest into our regions in New Zealand and you would have money to invest in jobs. But you saw that you ought to give it to the top 10 percent of New Zealand and then we did not have the money for beneficiaries. We did not have the money for health. We did not have the money for a whole lot of things.I wonder whether the members opposite can remember the promises their party made in 2008. I have to say you are meant to believe the word of a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister then in Opposition said National would retain the policy. There would be no radical changes to this policy. There were eight cuts to the KiwiSaver scheme in the 7 long years National has been in Government. That is one for every year and that is on a solemn promise that National would not change this scheme radically. I have to say I would actually rename this bill the “Fess Up to Chicanery Bill” because that is exactly what this is. The Government makes promises and then breaks them. It tells the people that it will do one thing and then it does something quite different.