Connell Brian: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: KiwiSaver Bill — In Committee 
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BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 Thank you for the call on the KiwiSaver Bill. I will start by picking up where my colleague Katherine Rich left off and say that the process we have witnessed makes a mockery of our democracy. How can a select committee meet week after week to examine a bill in minute detail simply to be ignored by the Minister when the bill is reported back? That is a mockery of our democracy by any gauge. 
Craig Foss 
: It’s a “mockracy”! 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: It is a “mockracy”. The Finance and Expenditure Committee heard 72 submissions and to the best of my information not one of them supported the idea of mortgage diversion. It was not even in the bill yet here we are debating it as a key component of the legislation. I wonder what went through Gordon Copeland’s head that makes him think he can ignore the collective wisdom of the select committee process. What makes him think he is bigger than that process and can go to the Minister of Finance and do sneaky dirty little deals like this one? 
I turn to the bill proper. Conceptually of course the National Party agrees that a rigorous sensible savings culture is necessary in this country. But will this bill achieve that? The answer is clearly no it will not happen at all. The next question I pose to members of this Committee is: who will pay for it? A significant start would be for the Government to put into the savings scheme the $882000 it stole from the taxpayers of this country. That would be a good start to a savings scheme would it not? 
Let me turn my attention now to the contributions holiday. Who really believes that having a contributions holiday will support a savings scheme? People will be putting in money and whipping it out quicker than Taito Phillip Field whips out money from his electorate office. That is how quickly the money will be coming out of this scheme. It is not something that any member of this House believes is robust. I encourage members of this House to look at the statistics of countries that have contribution holidays. What do those statistics tell us? Essentially that these schemes do nothing. People will take their thousand bucks—of course they will—but will they continue to save or will they whip out that money? That will be the end of the grand KiwiSaver scheme. It will be a disaster because it is badly structured and badly thought through. It had some merit until Gordon Copeland decided to do his little back-room deal. I am saying that even that is an exaggeration. 
The real problem with this bill is that it does not address the fundamental issue which is that in order for people to save they have to have their tax burden reduced and they have to receive higher wages. If Gordon Copeland is to say the way to get asset-rich is to pay off one’s mortgage then for goodness’ sake why do we not just give people more money and encourage them to do that? Why go through this convoluted scheme I ask Mr Copeland? Why does he not just come clean and say that the real issue is that Kiwis pay too much tax? Does this bill address those fundamental issues? No it does not. Here is a wake-up call for this Government. It should start to deal with the real issues rather than skirt around the edges. 
As I have said the purpose of the scheme is OK but its method is appalling. The scheme will not work. I look forward to going through all the parts of the bill systematically dissecting it and pointing out to members of this House why it will not work. The Government could not even get the starting date right.