Burns Brendon: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Burns Brendon: Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:19013] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am a little bemused by the preceding speech by the member from the struggling poor electorate of Taranaki - King Country and by his description of the union movement which obviously has not done anything to help the poor people of my electorate Christchurch Central! I just remind him that firstly generous donations were made by various unions to the Christchurch earthquake appeal and secondly as he asked who was there first I can tell him that people like police firefighters nurses and emergency service workers were there first most of whom are proud members of unions and some of whom were outside Parliament yesterday to say they did not want to see a Budget that took the axe to the benefits they have enjoyed from good sound policies that the Labour Government introduced like KiwiSaver and others. 
I will start by putting on the record how pleased I am to see that this Budget provides for Canterbury. I am probably the member whose electorate will benefit the most from that provision the $5.5 billion put into the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Fund. I am also particularly pleased to see that the Government has picked up the idea of an earthquake bond. I have been working on that myself with a group that I chair Interests in Conserving the Identity of Christchurch which brings together building owners and heritage advocates. Jim Anderton has done some work on that and we have done some work on it. I would hope that as the earthquake bond comes through after the announcement yesterday we will see that there is some potential for it to at least in part support things like heritage retention in Christchurch. It is important to the rebuild of our city along with other elements. I would also hope that some of the money might be directed to further support for skills training which is of course essential for our rebuild as well. There it is on the record—we are in support of that measure. 
There are now no excuses from here on in terms of how the rebuild proceeds. The Government has the power through the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act it has the money as provided by the Budget and it has the department in place. We are looking for an acceleration of the recovery from here on. There should be no more of the delays with things like heating where there has been acknowledgment of the installation of 4000 new heaters when there are 25000 people who have asked for them. Let us hit the fast-forward button now in terms of this Budget funding the recovery of Christchurch. 
However there is for me a deep and fundamental concern about how the quake is portrayed in the Budget. I say to members that yes the quake should be the centrepiece of the Budget because it is the nation’s biggest ever natural disaster and this Government or any Government would have had to respond to that situation. But that is no reason whatsoever in my view to provide for the sale of assets be they State assets or Christchurch City assets. I remind members opposite that the basis of the Budget is that the quake accounts for only 10 percent of the accumulated deficit nearly $17 billion. Let us not see the quake used as some sort of carte blanche for asset sales. 
I will talk first about the assets of my city Christchurch where $2.2 billion in assets is held by ratepayers. These assets are essential to the financial integrity of the city. They keep rates down by about 15 percent. They have contributed to many other important projects such as the building of the Christchurch Art Gallery which became the base for civil defence and more latterly the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority operation. That was the building that stood up and it was funded in large part by assets such as Orion. Orion has returned nearly $1 billion to the Christchurch City Council and its ratepayers over 20 years. That is nearly $1 billion from one of the assets alone. I challenge the next Government speaker who might be Amy Adams to stand up and add to my voice in saying that we will not tolerate any sale of Christchurch City Council Selwyn or Waimakariri assets as part of the funding of the recovery. 
I ask members why we should be concerned about that. We are concerned because firstly the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act provides the capacity for that to happen and secondly the Budget provides for the sell-down of half of some of the major assets currently held by the Crown. We look at Mighty River Power Meridian Energy Genesis Solid Energy and Air New Zealand as being the principal assets that we hold and we say it is absolutely essential that those stay in public ownership because of the dividend stream they provide. 
I ask the next member to speak to comment on the issues created by the Supplement to the 2010 Investment Statement of the Government of New Zealand. On page 3 in the Executive Summary it states that proceeds from asset sales— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Just a short while ago I was asked to rule on relevance. This debate is on the Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill— 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: That’s right. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Who said that? I ask the member to leave. I am on my feet. You are out. 
Hon Phil Heatley withdrew from the Chamber. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I ask the member Brendon Burns to contain his comments to matters that are in the bill. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I have ruled on the matter. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Only if you have a separate point of order. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I was the person who at one point during Mr Ardern’s speech raised an issue with you. You were generous and correct in your ruling. You stated that the debate had stretched pretty wide of the mark and that others had stretched it possibly even further or to the same level as Mr Ardern. I argue that in terms of being consistent what is good for the goose is good for the gander as it were. I invite you to perhaps have a wee think about the instruction you have given my colleague. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The member has made a fair point but I was responding because I had been asked to make a ruling earlier. Maybe I did not make the point as firmly as I should have. I will restate what I said then. We have strayed wide and I alert the member Brendon Burns to the fact that it is my desire that he approach the debate in the direction of the bill. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I pledge I will not refer to Farmy Armies unions or any other matters from here on. I will talk about the Budget and the fact that in Part 1 of the Taxation (Annual Rates and Budget Measures) Bill it provides for the taxes to be paid this year and in Part 2 it provides for cuts to Working for Families and KiwiSaver. I am making the point that part of the whole integrity of the Budget is actually including partial asset sales so how can we have that included as part of the Budget its papers and its assessment of forecasts when in fact the Government has said it will not take those issues to the electorate until 26 November and they will not come into play until next year? But here in the Budget papers we have a provision for a stream of income from asset sales of the order of $5 billion to $7 billion. 
I come to a point on KiwiSaver and the changes made to it in Part 2 of the bill. To me this just continues what has been an appalling record by National in office that dates back to the time of our colleague Sir Roger Douglas who in 1974 brought in a contributory superannuation scheme—a predecessor if you like of KiwiSaver. If it had been left in place it would have seen us a very wealthy nation today—would have. Unfortunately the then National leader Rob Muldoon campaigned on disembowelling that scheme and we have paid a price for that ever since. That is not the only legacy of National in respect of superannuation which has been most recently manifested by yesterday’s announcements on KiwiSaver. In the 1990s there was a cut to the base rate for married couples from 65 percent of the average wage to 60 percent. It was a swingeing cut for those people. Around 70 percent of people are reliant on national superannuation as their base income. We had that change perpetrated on New Zealanders in the 1990s under the Shipley administration. 
Now we have KiwiSaver in about its third permutation—because National came into office saying it would cut back the employer contribution to 2 percent—and now we are seeing under this measure a return to a 3 percent payment from employers. The signals from employers are that that will simply come out of the wage increases of employees. That is certainly not contributing in my view to the focus on savings that this Budget is supposed to have at its heart. If we are going to encourage people to save then we need as Treasury’s and the Inland Revenue Department’s own regulatory impact statements say explicitly stability and predictability. People will not put money into schemes if they think Governments will play around with them. 
Here we have a National Government that should hang its head in shame at its past history on superannuation and on encouraging New Zealanders to save. Yet again National is playing tricks with a superannuation scheme that was picked up by thousands and thousands of New Zealanders every week—1.7 million New Zealanders have come on board. Instead of enhancing the scheme adding to it or building it into a scheme that all New Zealanders can rely on into their future retirement we are seeing the axe taken to it. We are seeing cuts being made to it. We are seeing its value being undermined. New Zealanders will take those signals and ask why they should stay on board and contribute to KiwiSaver if the Government is not staying on board. We are already seeing comments like that in the public domain. 
My final comment is that although this Budget is supposedly about growth we saw two references to exports and 19 references to debt in the text of the Minister of Finance’s speech to the House yesterday—19:2. That is the focus of this Budget. It is about debt and it is about cutting; it is not about growing. It is a very poor shabby and shameful Budget.