Nash Stuart: General Debate 
Nash Stuart: General Debate 
[Volume:673;Page:19831] 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I must admit that I find it amusing that the member David Bennett who is the chair of a select committee and is also on the Finance and Expenditure Committee spent 5 minutes—spent his time in the general debate—talking about a Labour tax policy that has not been released. It has not been released; no one knows the details of it. We certainly have not confirmed that we are planning to introduce a capital gains tax. He spent 5 minutes talking about that. Do members know what that proves to me? Do members know what that proves to me? That just proves that the Government has absolutely no plan. I can tell members that if the Government had a plan Mr Bennett would have spent 5 minutes talking about the plan. He would have spent 5 minutes talking about the plan but he did not because there is no plan—absolutely no plan. It actually does make me smile and it makes me confident as we head into an election that the National Government can hang its hat on nothing except asset sales. That is its only policy: asset sales. It is not a positive policy but it is the only policy. 
I would like to play a little game of charades. I do not mean to hold this House in disrespect whatsoever but it is a little game of charades. I play this with my children quite a bit. How it works is that I say something and people have to guess who I am. It is a little bit like  
7 Days  
or  
Back Benches 
. The first question is who said this: “National will not increase GST”. Who said that? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: John Key. 
STUART NASH 
: John Key—that is dead right. John Key as the Leader of the Opposition said that to the people of New Zealand. He looked at the camera with those hollow eyes of his and said to the people of New Zealand “National will not increase GST.” But he did—he did. After promising that he would not increase GST he did. 
But the issue is worse than that; it actually is worse than that. John Key increased GST for every single New Zealander so that the few very wealthy people could get a great tax cut. That is what he did. Someone who earns a million dollars a year—a million dollars a year—receives a tax cut of $1000 a week. The Inland Revenue Department tells us that the tax cut would be $1000 a week. The Inland Revenue Department tells us that about 700 New Zealanders earn a million dollars a year. They had a tax cut of $1000 a week. But do members know what? People who earn the median wage in Napier received about $10 a week—they received $10—100 times less than people who earn a million dollars a year did. The question I have to ask and it is a pretty simple one is whether that is fair. Is this a plan for economic growth? Is it equitable? Is it the sort of country that we as New Zealanders pride ourselves on? The very wealthy are becoming even wealthier on the back of the vast majority of good hard-working New Zealanders who are out there trying to make it happen. 
Paul Quinn 
: This is last year’s speech. 
STUART NASH 
: No it is not. 
Let me tell members a little about economic philosophy because I think Mr Quinn has a couple of problems. The economic philosophy followed by the vast majority of Governments around the world is Keynesian economic theory. That works by saying that if we give money to those who need it that will stimulate economic growth but that if we give money to those at the very top they will save it or retire debt. At a certain time in the economic cycle that is actually not too bad. But when the country is in recession the last thing that we would want to do is to have all the money that was given away as tax cuts have absolutely no effect on economic growth whatsoever. Treasury said that this is the case: tax cuts for the very wealthy have no impact whatsoever on the economic growth of this country. 
I come back to the question of whether this situation is fair. I was asked to go to William Colenso College in Napier to talk about tax to third formers. I thought “Goodness me—talking about tax to third formers!”. What I did was to outline the National Government’s tax policy whereby the very wealthy received $1000 or more per week in tax cuts and those on the median wage received $10 a week in tax cuts. Do members know what they said to me? They said “Oh sir that’s not fair.”—exactly.