Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 May 2010. Volume:663;Page:11144. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am looking forward to the contributions from the Maori Party to this debate. Driving home last night I had to stop for petrol. The Maori woman behind the counter asked me “Is the Maori Party really going to vote to increase GST for me? Is it really going to vote to increase my GST? I have checked it out on the website and I do not get much of a tax cut. I am on a reasonably low income. I am working behind the counter at a petrol station.” She told me that she had voted for the Maori Party and that she was pretty surprised that given all of its rhetoric before the election its members were now coming into this House to vote in favour of increasing GST. 
She had seen Hone Harawira’s comments in the paper yesterday. I told her not to worry because I knew that Hone Harawira was a man of great courage. I do not think Hone Harawira would ever say outside Parliament something that he was not willing to come down and stand eyeball to eyeball with the National Government to say in this Chamber. I think he has a lot of courage and he will come down he will be in the Chamber he will take a call he will speak against a rise in GST and then he will cross the floor and vote against it. I do not think Hone Harawira would be a lion out in public and then be a pussycat curled up in John Key’s lap here in the House. I do not think Hone Harawira would do that. I look forward to his joining us in the Noes lobby when it comes time to vote against this increase in GST which will hit Maori particularly hard. 
The people in my electorate ask me what is in this Budget for them. I say to them that for the 69 percent of people in my electorate who earn under $40000 a year the answer is not very much. Most of the people who earn under $40000 a year according to the tax table that was produced with the Budget will get less than 25 bucks a week in their tax cut. They will pay at least another 13 bucks a week in increased GST so that is less than 10 bucks a week in the pocket. If they have children in early childhood education they will be looking at about another 25 bucks a week per child for early childhood education. They will be worse off. If they are superannuitants who have had their home help cut they will be worse off. If they are tertiary students who now have to pay extra on their student loans they will be worse off. Even worse if they want to be tertiary students but find they cannot get into a university or a polytechnic they will be worse off. They may get an extra 10 bucks a week—that is if they are at the highest end of that 70 percent who earn under $40000. If they are on that $40000 mark they will get about $9.94 a week according to Bill English. But for those people down at the bottom end at the minimum wage level who earn around $28000 a year it is about five bucks a week. That is worth about two or three packets of chewing gum to the people on the lowest incomes. The tax cuts from the National Government are certainly not enough for a block of cheese or even half a block of cheese for those people on the lowest incomes. National is interested only in those who are at the top of the heap. 
I am really looking forward to hearing the contributions from the Maori Party members who campaigned before the election about removing GST from food altogether. I am looking forward to hearing their justification for voting in favour of a 2.5 percent increase in GST—hiking up the food and grocery prices for every working family in New Zealand. And it will not be just food and grocery prices that will be going up either; it will be rates insurance and all the other services that will go up as a result of the extra 2.5 percent on GST which will go up to 15 percent. It is a tax swindle not a tax switch as the Government has talked about. 
The hollow rhetoric from the hollow men in the National Government is simply misleading. It shows that their promises before the election were simply a hoax. They promised that everyone could have a tax cut that they would not increase borrowing to pay for it and that they would not cut public services. Well they are giving tax cuts to the people on the highest incomes while those on the lowest incomes face a tax increase through higher GST. They are increasing borrowing and cutting spending on public services. They are cutting spending on health. They are not allowing health spending to keep up with the growing population or the growing demand. Health spending will not keep up with the demands of an ageing population so people will be paying more. 
I heard Ganesh Nana from Business and Economic Research Ltd on Radio New Zealand National this morning saying that in the short term this Budget is affordable but in the long term the tax cuts the Government has delivered are not affordable. The National Government is mortgaging up the nation’s children and grandchildren to pay for the tax cuts it is dishing out today.