Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6251. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 Well we know after that contribution that John Hayes was never a paper boy—never a paper boy. We know after that contribution that Simon Bridges I am told recently made a speech in Tauranga and got mistaken for a paper boy. 
Let us do some analysis based on John Hayes’ speech. John Hayes painted this rosy bizarre view of the New Zealand economy that exists in his little world—or probably big world actually—but does not exist here in New Zealand. He talked about employment. Well here are a couple of figures for Mr Hayes as he sort of—I think the word is—shuffles to the corner of the House. They are 84000 young people not in work or training—that is a great legacy for Mr Hayes—an unemployment rate of 162000 of course and 40000 manufacturing jobs lost. What a wonderful legacy this Government provides! There was a tax switch—which of course was actually a tax swindle—which they in Government say was fair where the top 10 percent got 40 to 44 percent of the tax cut. What do we know—I think Russel Norman referred to it in a different way—that people at the top generally do if they get a windfall tax cut because they have got enough discretionary income anyway? They either pay off debt or put it in the bank. It is not spent generally it is not recycled and it does not provide the blood into the body of the economy that we need. And by the way more important it is not fair. 
A few of those people over there benefited and I think given our incomes in this place we are probably in the top 5 percent or top 10 percent. We all in this House benefited given our salaries. The top 10 percent got 44 percent of the tax cuts and the rest of New Zealand languished. Then the Government whipped up GST. And guess who that hit? It was not its mates of course—not those on the top 10 percent. Yes they paid the increase in GST but of course if you are on incomes like ours in this House and above you have a bit of discretionary income and a bit of an income cushion unlike those at the bottom. 
Then you look at this Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill which is as others have said all about simple tinkering. The paper boy tax is not in this bill of course but that was the great reform the big economic and taxation hit. This was a great reforming visionary Government—put the boot into the old paper boy or paper girl. It cut the contribution to KiwiSaver and then its great reform was to put it back up again—all over the show. What does that do? As in Muldoon’s time back in the 1970s when the Muldoon Government bribed people with their own money—and that is the truth; that is the truth—it bribes people with their own money in superannuation. All that does is undermine confidence in KiwiSaver when actually I would have thought that across the House what we wanted was to bolster the numbers in KiwiSaver and give people the confidence to enter that scheme and contribute. But they are not going to get that from a Government that tinkers slashes burns reinstates and messes around with that particular policy. 
What a great legacy this crowd leaves! They have a thousand people a week going to Australia—a thousand people a week. We know that 17000 tradespeople—people whom apparently and they are right we need in this country—in my province of Canterbury for instance technically trained highly skilled New Zealanders are heading across the Ditch because this crowd will not train anybody. They say they are going to bring people in from overseas. Of course eventually we are going to need people from overseas but we need them now because this crowd refused to train anyone. You cannot expect a business person to take on an unemployed person with no skills without training. 
David Bennett 
: The Labour Party took you on. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh we did not abolish the Modern Apprenticeship Training Act—no no no—we introduced the Modern Apprenticeships scheme and trained thousands of people. That was that mob. In fact it was the Hon Lockwood Smith who actually put that little doozy in. You cannot expect a business person to employ somebody for a skilled job when they are not trained. So what is going to happen is that business people will take people from overseas because they cannot wait—and nor can earthquake victims wait—another 2 years to train a young person to become a plumber or a carpenter to build and reconstruct a house. 
What a great legacy these people leave: no plan no strategy except to flog some assets off and the second-worst current account deficit in the OECD. Who is ahead of us on that? Greece—what a wonderful place to aspire to. And the projections from the IMF are that we will go from No. 2. We will be No. 1 in something—