Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): One of the talking points that the National Party's minions out there on Facebook are using to defend the fact that the richest get $35 a week out of the tax changes and the poorest get $5 a week if they are lucky or $1 once they have had the clawback from the removal of the tax credit is that in percentage terms $35 is not a very large percent return to those who are the richest. Well you cannot go to the supermarket and buy groceries with a percent. You actually need dollars at the supermarket and it is the people who are at the lowest end who are earning the least who need those dollars more than anybody else. But this is a classic National Party tax package which gives the most to those who have the most and gives crumbs to those who have the least.Let us talk about what tax is actually for because you get the impression by the way the Government members have been speaking today that tax is just a punishment for working. Well tax is actually the way we all contribute to the services that we all need in a functioning society. Tax is how we make sure we have enough police officers to keep our communities safe. Tax is how we pay our doctors and our nurses and our care assistants to make sure that we get the healthcare that we need. Tax is how we pay our teachers and our teacher-aides so that our children get the education that they need. And all this bill is doing is reducing the money that we have to do all of those things in order to put more money in the back pockets of people who are already doing the best. That is what this bill does. At a time when it is nearly impossible for people to get on a waiting list to go to the hospital at a time when for adults going to the GP is more expensive than it has ever been before—and I guarantee that every single one of us who is an electorate MP has had constituents come to talk to them about the price of going to the GP and how they have actually delayed going or not gone to see their doctor because of the price of it—at a time when that is a critical issue this Government thinks that we should have less revenue to pay for those things to put more money in the back pockets of people who are already doing well.At a time when the rates of burglaries and violent crimes are climbing against decade-long trends of falling crime rates; when we are suddenly seeing crime on the rise again; when we need more police officers; and when we need to give them the resources to actually do good old-fashioned community policing and for it to be embedded in our communities—not just to respond to crime but to prevent it—this Government is cutting taxes giving them less revenue to provide the resources that our police officers need and to provide enough police officers to keep our communities safe.At a time when our schools are bursting at the seams because of the astonishing rate of population growth that this country is currently experiencing; at a time when teacher-aides are struggling because of their low pay and the few hours that they actually get per week and the money that they get to make ends meet; and at a time when parents are paying more in so-called donations than ever before rather than putting money into the education system so that the next generation get a world-class education and are fit and ready to participate in 21st century society this Government thinks that it is the time to cut taxes and put money in the pockets of people who have the most. Well I say that that is wrong.The families who get the least out of this need a decent health system that is affordable. They need an education system that is affordable. They need to know that their communities are safe and that there are police officers out there keeping their communities safe. That is what we use our taxes for. Cutting taxes to make the rich richer and make the poor struggle even more is entirely the wrong thing to do but it is exactly what you would expect from a National Government.