Moroney Sue: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2465. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 Yes if people are still tuned in that was the big idea brains trust from National about what will fix these economic woes that this country has: Todd McClay talking about cows on TradeMe. That is the big idea that they have! Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill— 
David Bennett 
: You didn’t get the joke! 
SUE MORONEY 
: It was hard to understand what he said but it was about cows on TradeMe. That is the big issue that is going to fix the economic woes of this country. Part 1 I think shows how out of touch this Government is with the economic woes of this country and the issues faced by ordinary families in New Zealand. They have found in Part 1 the culprits to our economic woes. They have gone looking for them and they found them: the culprits are the paper boys and paper girls of this country not paying tax. That is what they are going to fix up to bring this country into economic growth. Well that just goes to show how devoid of ideas and how devoid of an actual plan for the brighter future they promised this country that Government actually is. Part 1 of this bill says what we are going to do—and why we suspended the Budget debate to fix the economic woes and the absolute bottoming out of the economy in this country on that Government’s watch—is we are going to start taxing children who are doing paper rounds. They are children in fact who come from probably some of the poorest families in this country. They are the children who are out there earning more than $2340 a year not because it is fun not because they feel like doing it but because that contributes to their family’s income. Those are the very families that that Government is going after. The Government is making them the culprits for its lack of having a plan its lack of having any ambition of bringing this country out of the economic doldrums that it got us into.  
I go on to also let people know about another part that goes after children in Part 1. This Government going after children all the time as it is has taken away the tax credit for childcare. That is right. It has not been spoken about much but it is saying that it does not want working families to be able to have a tax credit for the childcare payments that they pay. But it is about actually joining the dots together because not only are they taking the tax credit away but they have frozen the subsidies to early childhood education in this Budget today. That means that fees are going to go up for parents. That will even further stretch the family budget that is already stretched to breaking point. That is how out of touch that Government is with working families because it does not understand how bad their budgets are.  
Part 1 actually makes it worse. Not only are fees going to go up for early childhood education but now they are taking away the tax credits that parents can currently claim for childcare expenses and that is being done through Part 1 of this bill. It is a mean-spirited bill because it does not fix any of the economic woes of this country. We are flatlining economically. We are in an economic rut thanks to that Government and its lack of any plan.  
What is the Government doing to fix that? Well it is pickpocketing the pocket money of our children and it is also saying that families can no longer claim a small but important tax credit for childcare expenses. This is on the back of delivering a Budget today that increases childcare expenses for all of those families as well. That Government is showing by Part 1 of the bill that it is completely out of touch with the struggles that working families face. It is completely out of touch with that. Not only does the Government’s saying that it will put a financial veto against extending paid parental leave show how out of touch it is with the everyday struggles of working families but it is using Part 1 of this bill to attack working families all over again and to say that they can no longer claim a tax credit for childcare expenses.  
Those childcare expenses are going to go up as a result of other measures that the Government has taken in the Budget today. This is just a double whammy for working families with young children. Is it not interesting that the Government wants us to think that it is interested in vulnerable children? Paula Bennett wants us to believe that but here she is in Part 1 of this bill attacking those very children.