Goff Phil: General Debate 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:638;Page:8837] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I begin by congratulating the Prime Minister on the initiative that she announced this morning in identifying common ground within this House on the issue of the appropriate disciplining of children. I would also like to acknowledge other party leaders in the House for their role in that process. I believe that the solution the Prime Minister has put forward is a sensible one that provides clarity of purpose around which I hope most members can now agree. 
In this debate however I want to address different issues—the issues of policy of leadership and of a fair taxation system. We have been waiting in this House for 18 months since the last election for the National Party to come up with a single policy. The country has been waiting and the country has been showing increasing cynicism about whether the new Leader of the Opposition is all style and no substance and whether the National Party has any idea of policy direction or where it wants to take the country. 
Obviously the message has got through because this week we have heard a couple of policy announcements albeit tentative ones from the co-leaders—or is it the competing leaders—of the Opposition John Key and Bill English. But both of them have messed it up and I doubt that we will hear any more policy from the National Party until shortly before the next election. What was John Key’s policy? John Key’s policy was to make a direct attack on the very popular Working for Families package. He said he would take that policy back to where it was before the enhancements made by Labour. That is if any family is receiving over $70000—joint incomes—it will get nothing and family support tax credits will start abating from $27000 at a sharp rate. 
What would that policy do to the ordinary working family in this country? I will tell members what it would do. For a typical working family on a low income—let us say $40000 a year between mum and dad with two kids—the policy would cut their income by $50 a week. That is $50 a week off a low-income family that earns $40000 between the two parents. Let us take a slightly higher but still relatively modest income—a family earning $50000 a week between the couple who also have two children. That policy would deplete that family’s income by up to $80 a week. That is the promise from John Key that the country can really believe. What John Key wants to do is to take the ordinary battler the family facing the costs of raising their kids at their most expensive age—the family faced with a mortgage at its peak—and he wants to rob them of that sum of money. 
What does John Key want to do with that money? I guess he would do one of two things with it. The typical thing that National would do is to take that money off the people who need it most and give it to those who need it least—that is the supporters of the National Party. The other alternative he raised was that he would take the money and redistribute it. Do members know how much money that policy would give to each family in the country? 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How much? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: It would give them $5 a week. That would not make any difference to the wealthy and it certainly would not make any difference to those ordinary battling Kiwi families out there. 
But that is John Key. That is the John Key who professes concern for the disadvantaged. The first attack he makes is on the policy that will bring 70000 kids in this country out of poverty. John Key is recommending that those kids be thrust back into poverty by disbanding the Working for Families policy. 
Hon Bill English 
: That’s wrong. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Bill English chips in. I can forgive John Key for his inexperience. He had not done the figures. He had not thought it through. It was a half-baked idea. But Bill English on the other hand has a lot of experience. Bill English was chairman of the select committee that put through the benefit cuts in the 1990s under Ruth Richardson’s policy of squeezing the poor. That is Bill English. That same Bill English was a Cabinet Minister in 1998 when the National Government cut superannuation from 65 percent of the average wage to 60 percent. That is the Bill English who now says he supports the OECD report that wants to raise the eligibility age for superannuation and put up GST. I think members can believe Bill English on both promises.