Tabuteau Fletcher: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: KiwiSaver Budget Measures Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 21 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3872. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First):As a new member this term I cannot believe the audacity of this Government and its members. I just do not know what is left for this Government to do to meaningfully address our growing trade deficit for example. It is a Government of members who stand in front of the people of this country and tell us how important growing our export businesses are but then it will not stand up in front of the people of this country and tell them that real export figures are going backwards.I just do not know what is left for this Government to do that is meaningful to address the Government’s own growing debt. It is spiralling out of control. The Government tells us it is fiscally responsible and it has admonished this side of the House for being apparently irresponsible itself. But in its own books—its own books which it obviously does not open very often—its debt continues to spiral out of control. Those members dare not stand there and tell New Zealanders that our debt is $19000 or nearly $20000 per person—they cannot stand there and tell us that that is fiscally sound. Even in the time of Muldoon’s Think Big projects the per-person debt was half of that. These masters of fiscal management have overseen a growth in debt from next to nothing to $80 billion. They should not accuse this side of the House of distorting the truth. Someone is going to have to deal with this unsustainable debt and it will not be that Government.Business commentators have already described this Budget as piecemeal and reactive. If there is a plan behind this Budget if there is foresight and meaningful consideration given to the future of this country then the Prime Minister and his team have hidden that vision so incredibly well. Commentators went on to say that this Budget will do nothing to unite the business sector—that is the National Government’s Budget has nothing to unite the business sector.Regarding the KiwiSaver legislation itself the National Government has just shown us how callous it is. The logic that it uses is that the $1000 contribution is too costly an incentive. It is ignoring the tax that it took off its rich mates some time ago. It is ignoring the money that it may have saved from its welfare cuts in the 1990s.New Zealand First asked as a formal process in this House for the Government to hold off—do not pass this bill; do not make it a retrospective piece of legislation. If the $1000 contribution has no effect which is the argument behind this bill then why the urgency? Why not give our children a chance? Even the meanest estimate from the Government in the last couple of days during which it has tried to convince New Zealanders that they will be giving only that up is $25000 per person at retirement. A more reasonable estimate—and I speak to the Minister who questioned my numbers; I did adjust for tax and I did use reasonable numbers—is that the lost income for our retirees is between $117000 and $145000 per person at retirement based solely on the $1000 contribution alone. That is just an unbelievable loss to our future generations.With at least 500000 New Zealanders—but many would argue it could be 1 million New Zealanders—still to sign up the multiplication is basic. I will leave it for the backbench members over there to do the maths themselves but New Zealand First asked this Government to consider halving the kick-start contribution to $500 dollars. The $500 seemed like a compromise. The savings even at $1000 are so minuscule as to be redundant—they truly are. But $500 we asked for. Let us be reasonable. Do not take it away so that many of our children now are missing out because of the miserly and ill-conceived processes of this Government.The debate has been far-reaching and I think quite in-depth and we have spoken about the fairness. From one morning to one afternoon we now have a disparity in entitlement between a child who applied in the morning of the day of the Budget and a child who applied in the evening. It just does not make sense. There was no warning. There is no fairness. It is simply a retrospective piece of legislation and I think we all know—I think we have all seen—that that retrospective legislation is bad basically. It often does more harm than the good that we think it will do.I did not speak about it myself but I will take this opportunity now to speak of certainty—certainty for New Zealanders in their savings. That is a key element of any successful savings fund. The New Zealanders who wish to use it must have certainty but to cut away at it eight times continually over the years—whether you like it or not certainty is so important in order for New Zealanders to have faith in a savings scheme that they can believe in that they can use and that will supplement their retirement income into the future. This Government has taken that certainty away in so many ways with this Budget with this bill being just another example of that.I ask this Government not to be so miserly—let us not take it all away; let us give New Zealanders some time—but no. I do not think that at any stage in this debate there was any real engagement. Certainly no one was listening as no one on that side of the House seems to be listening now. It is a presumed outcome. Those members are being lazy they are not engaging and they are using their majority to simply pass poor legislation through under urgency with no engagement and no discussion with the people of New Zealand.No one on that side of the House has listened to logic. No one has listened to reasonable requests based on compassion. New Zealand First cannot support this bill.