Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Brash Don: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:616;Page:12368] 
2.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement that the Future Directions Package will “significantly increase direct income support and incentives to move from welfare benefits into paid employment”; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
:  
Yes because the statement is correct. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Why then has the head of the Labour Market Policy Group stated in written advice on the Future Directions Package that the Government’s plans would result in “lessening the incentive to paid work” and why has the Government totally ignored this advice? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: We have not. I think the documents the member has date to mid-January 2004. There was a great deal of further development to the package after that date. On Budget night the member will find that a good deal of the money he is proposing to spend on the rich will be spent on low to middle-income families. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What other proposals has the Minister seen regarding welfare and worker protections? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have seen proposals for abolishing the statutory minimum wage abolishing the unemployment benefit reducing benefit levels cutting entitlement to the pension and dismantling worker protections. We look forward to Dr Brash explaining the details of those proposals that he has put forward. 
Sue Bradford 
: Has the Minister seen any of the research on the outcomes of American workfare and time-limited benefit programmes over the last 10 years and can he confirm that a Labour Government will not move towards such initiatives? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Government tends very much to prefer the use of carrots to sticks. The American workfare proposal tends to shift problems from one state to another. They are also starting to run into difficulties when some of their time-limited periods run out and they do not know quite what to do about some of the people left as a consequence. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: When looking at incentives to encourage full-time work did the Government consider the fact that it would be possible to give every full-time worker a $100-a-fortnight tax cut which would cost $4 billion—that is two-thirds of the surplus—and that that is a lot easier to administer and fairer than fiddling around with income-support payments? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If applied immediately that proposal would leave an approximately $5 billion cash deficit this year and a multi-billion dollar cash deficit the following year. If the member went through 1984 to 1990 trying to get the deficits down and would now blow them out again he has learnt nothing from history. 
Dr Don Brash 
: For the bulk of the money in the Future Directions Package why has the Government opted to make no distinction between those in work and those not in work thus failing to increase the incentive to move off benefits into paid employment? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member is incorrect. The incentives have been substantially increased but unlike the previous National Government we will improve the position of working low to middle-income families without pushing beneficiary families further into poverty. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Why in its Future Directions Package has the Government chosen to ignore OECD advice that in-work payments need to be significant to create a real incentive to move off benefits into paid employment? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: As I said to the member he is relying upon one document from mid-January. He will have to wait until 27 May to find that policy has long since overcome the proposals at that time.