Collins Judith: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Taxation (KiwiSaver and Company Tax RateAmendments) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9466] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 We have just learnt a new term—social debate. What the hell does that mean? What is a social debate? It is just another politically correct term from that Government and from one of the most politically correct members of a politically correct Government. The people who pay for this will wonder what a social debate is as opposed to an unsocial debate I suppose. What does it mean? I say to Ms Street that most people here do not sit around talking in the language of social debate. Most people have to look after their kids. Most people have to pay the bills. Most people have not been living off the Government for years and years and years and working the taxpayer system. Most people have to work for a living. 
When I listen to that member and other Government members speak about this I ask who KiwiSaver is really going to help. Will it help the poor? Laila Harré says that it will not do a thing for the poor and I think she is right. Let us have a look at the people it will help. The Inland Revenue Department had to hire 400 more people just to bring in the most basic version of KiwiSaver last time. So we can forget the 1000 new police; we will have 1000 new tax bureaucrats in the Inland Revenue Department. That is just what this country needs—not! It is just what this country needs—sure! What this means is more bureaucracy and more taxes paid to pay for this Government to be able to give people back some of their own money. 
What we do not know is who will be eligible for this. I would like to ask the Minister in the chair whether all public servants will be eligible for this. Will all public servants on the Government superannuation scheme at the moment be eligible for this? If that is true then will that not do something to the blowout in the Budget? Will that not actually have an effect? If it is not true then why are public servants being treated differently from everyone else. Is that true? 
I would like to know about the stay-at-home mums. What is in it for them? What is in this Budget for the women whom Ms Street has just said she thinks so much about? What is in it for them? There is absolutely nothing in this Budget for them—absolutely nothing. What they are being told is: “Get ye out to the workforce.” That is what they are being told. We hope these mums are having three or four children because someone has to have three or four children. We have to have a decent population in this country. Those people need to be praised and they need to be helped. They do not need to pay for this Government trying to give a tax credit to people who are saying they do not even have enough money to buy into the scheme. 
Most people unfortunately do not earn enough at the moment. What we have to understand is that most workers in New Zealand get about a third of what they would get in Australia for doing the same job. That is what they end up with. All this Government wants to do—instead of looking to the future and saying: “Let’s try to grow this economy.”—is to grow the Government. We now get $20 billion of taxpayers’ money going into the Government—$20 billion more each year than we had under the last National Government in 1999. That is a huge increase and most people in this country are finding it very difficult to cope. 
We do know that the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer. The people who are now becoming poor are the people with a couple of kids—two three or four kids or people who have one income or even two incomes for one person. Those people are our new poor. They have become the new poor under a Labour Government that likes to stand up on its hind legs and talk about the rights of women. Well what about the rights of women who do the work who look after the children and who help us have a better society because they work with their kids and are good mothers? What about them? There is absolutely nothing for them under this Government. 
The only thing they should know of course is that Michael Cullen has hinted that this will lead to some sort of means testing of national superannuation. He hinted at that yesterday when he spoke about how that would help to ensure that there would be enough money for national superannuation. Why would it help? These are supposed to be individual savings plans. Of course it will help only if this Government has in its mind that it will means test national superannuation. That will utterly destroy superannuation for those stay-at-home mums and destroy superannuation for people who have been on disability benefits for years because they are invalided and really cannot work. Means testing will destroy superannuation for the poor people.