Joyce StevenHon STEVEN JOYCE (National): Listening to the earlier speakers on this bill I was moved at the level of contradiction that was occurring. Mr Nash was busy telling us how important $20 a week can be for a family or for somebody in a difficult situation and how important it is to increase that. And yet this is the same Mr Nash who doesn't think that should happen for the average wage earners in his electorate of Napier—that somebody who's working hard to get ahead who might be a tradie or somebody who's doing a couple of jobs shouldn't get $20 a week. Because it's important for somebody that Labour bestows their favour on but it's not important for ordinary everyday Kiwis.Then we had Andrew Little going on at this side of the House and being aggressive about Labour's package. Is this the same Andrew Little that used to represent workers—middle-income workers who used to be important to him? Is this the same Andrew Little who actually used to stand up for those people but who's now sitting in this House and if you don't have the good fortune to have young children then Labour is not going to help you at all with this package—1.2 million New Zealanders are invisible to the New Zealand Labour Party; 1.2 million. And that's why they got only 37 percent because they told everybody else to take a running jump. That's what they did.The other thing that's really important—Hon Grant Robertson: You need friends Steven.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well let's talk about friends—let's talk about friends. Mr Robertson accused middle-income earners of having hollow selfish individualism. So the journalists that I just saw in the press gallery who happen to be single or don't have a young family are hollow selfish and individualistic if they would dare want to have a tax threshold change that would give them a bit more income—that this time of selfish individualism was gone because he was removing the tax threshold changes. There's no other way to write it than to say that anybody who is single or who has grown-up kids or who is a couple trying to get started is guilty of hollow selfish individualism according to Grant Robertson. I'm sorry if that's appalling; that's appalling. If that's the attitude in this bill there's no wonder that we'll be opposing it.Hon Iain Lees-Galloway: Oh you are going to oppose it?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: We are opposing it—definitely. Don't you worry about that. We are opposing it. We of course support the accommodation supplement changes but we've already put those in place. We don't need a bill to change that. We supported the Working for Families changes that we put in place. That side of the House is very excited today that they've collapsed the rates. Actually they didn't; that's already happened. That's already happened because the previous Government had already put this in place. But what we won't subscribe to is calling New Zealanders who don't have young children hollow selfish and individualistic. We are not going to subscribe to that as Grant Robertson did which is an appalling treatment of New Zealanders that just happen to be in different circumstances from the Labour Party's current favoured group.Now we need to talk a little bit about the claimed public endorsement of this package as raised by members opposite because there's a bit of a problem with that. Only one party campaigned for this package and that party got less than 37 percent of the vote. The New Zealand First Party voted for Budget 2017 and then campaigned to remove it. It's going to come as a surprise to New Zealand First supporters that they actually lose the $670-odd for the veterans pension that they'll lose the $670-odd for superannuation because none of them heard Tracey Martin running around the country saying Hey elect us and we'll remove the superannuation increase." Nobody heard that because it didn't happen; it didn't happen. And now she's sitting in this House and saying that she will change what she voted for and what she didn't campaign on and that's what's going on in this House. And then we have the Greens who also voted for it. They also voted for the package of the Government of the day in Budget 2017.So there is no mandate for this change and that's why we'll be arguing against it. The only party that argued for it got 36-point-something percent of the vote and are walking around arrogantly saying that anybody who doesn't support this is guilty of hollow selfish individualism. I'm sorry but that's not a fair way to describe New Zealanders. All they want—Hon Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at the fact that at least half a dozen times during that speech Mr Joyce has completely misrepresented what I have said—completely misrepresented what I have said.Hon Gerry Brownlee: That is not a way to raise a point of order about a matter like this. It is a debating point unless you're about to rule that it's not in which case chaos will reign throughout the House because those sorts of comments are frequently made and of course the man who makes them most frequently in this House is none other than Grant Robertson.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I thank both sides' members. This is a robust debate and I did hear the word "misrepresent" coming from both sides. I encourage all members to abide by the Speaker's ruling made at about 10 minutes to 5 and speak to the bill.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Of course we come to the very timing of this bill because actually this is not a big bill. This could've actually been tabled probably some weeks ago. It's certainly been on the books for a while but the Labour Party didn't want to run it until 10 or 11 days before Christmas because they're so embarrassed about what it is and they're hoping that nobody will notice exactly what's going on. Well I have news for them because New Zealanders do notice and that's why they're still well behind the National Party in the polls because they are the only ones arguing that people that actually want a tax package are guilty of hollow selfish individualism.We come now to the matter of the extra subsidies. We have two extra here. This is a poorly designed package. It's a poorly designed package and it actually involves resurrecting one tax credit that had already been sorted by providing people with tax cuts instead and adding two more including one that apparently you get to auto-enrol for but you have to report to the commissar if you're going to leave the country and have a winter energy payment and pay it back at that point which is something that we're no doubt going to have a look at through the course of this debate.This is a party opposite who claim that we shouldn't be having universal payments for things that tax is unfocused and shouldn't be given to everybody but then turns around in its incoherent way and says that we should give a baby bonus to everybody—baby bonus to every parent—irrespective of income and also a winter energy payment to any superannuitant irrespective of income. So superannuitants are not allowed to have an increase in superannuation but actually they're allowed to have a winter energy payment. This is ridiculous politics. This is just creating an ever larger spaghetti of entitlements that New Zealanders don't understand because the Labour Party can't bring itself to allow middle-income earners to have a tax reduction. They want everybody paying a 30c-in-the-dollar marginal tax rate. It's the only conclusion you can come to because 30c in the dollar is where we're all headed.Already more than half of all full-time workers in New Zealand pay a 30c-in-the-dollar tax rate. That's what's going on and if they are paying Working for Families abatement or they're paying accommodation supplement abatement they are already above 50 percent of every additional dollar that they earn going back to the Government. And this is a party on the other side who claim to care about the taxation of workers who say "Oh we should be valuing work more. We should be making sure that people get more of the value of their work." And the very first thing they do—the very first thing they do—is actually reduce the amount of return people see in their hands from their work. That's their first act. This is the party opposite who claims to be concerned about the wages of workers and the very first act of this party in relation to workers is to come to this House and take $1060 off people on the median wage from 1 April next year. That is not lifting their incomes. That's not helping them afford the costs in their lives. That is actually taking money from them. That's what's going on and that's why we will oppose this bill."