Robertson Grant: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 May 2010. Volume:663;Page:11134. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow on from the president of the North Shore Toastmasters. Members know that they are in trouble when Paul Quinn is nodding and saying: “That’s right.” beside them—it is terrible. Part 1 of the Taxation (Budget Measures) Bill is about choices and priorities. National made it very very clear to the country yesterday where its priority lies. Its priority does not lie in looking to the future and having a plan or a strategy. This Budget was given two out of 10 for its strategy yesterday because no long-term plan is present in it. 
Yesterday’s Budget speech by Bill English was remarkable in a number of ways. One of them was the complete absence of any plan for how to grow this economy. There is an obsession with tax cuts delivered to the rich and of avoiding talking about the Government’s plan or strategy. Apparently we have to cut the top tax rate in order to keep people in New Zealand and stop them going to Australia. The message for the National Government is that it is not the tax rates that will send people to Australia; it is the wages and the jobs that need to be created as part of a long-term plan to grow a sustainable economy. Taxes in Australia and the headline rate of tax there are only one thing. Under the Kevin Rudd Government Australia has been planning and investing in skills and training to try to get people into work. This Budget is devoid of a strategy or a plan for the future. It is a short-term-thinking Budget that will not deliver to New Zealanders the increased well-being and the standard of living that we all want. 
An obsession with tax and with tax cuts for the wealthy is not a path that will deliver a sustainable economy. The priorities that the Government is putting out here show that yes we have to borrow money. What should we use that borrowed money for? Should we use it for tax cuts for the wealthy few or should we use it to invest in something that will be good for our long-term future like early childhood education? Why would a Government cut $400 million from early childhood education? Is that not a priority for this Government? That is the message that the public of New Zealand is getting as 25 percent of the money that is being cut—the so-called low-value spending—is from early childhood education. The message that this Government is sending is that early childhood education is low-priority spending. That message will not be good for the future of New Zealand. 
The National Government is doing a “hit and hope” Budget. National is lining up to take its shot—and Mr Woodhouse plays a bit of golf—on the first tee but it has no idea where the hole is. National is just hitting the ball up in the air to see whether the tax cuts work and deliver growth. There is no real plan or idea of where exactly National wants the ball to go—it is just hitting and hoping. From the international experience we know that tax cuts do not deliver a sustainable economy. Tax cuts will not— 
Paul Quinn 
: When you go down the middle it doesn’t matter. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: There is Paul Quinn John Key’s chief policy adviser out there telling us what to do. Tax cuts do not deliver sustainable growth internationally. Sustainable growth comes from investing in people and starting in the earliest years to invest in people. But apparently that is not a priority. Apparently it is OK for early childhood educators to have to run cake stalls in order to buy crayons but for Paul Reynolds to receive over $1000 a week in a tax cut. Early childhood education cuts will mean that parents will pay more or that early childhood education centres will have to fund-raise just to be able to keep going and at the same time the richest 1 percent of people in our country will receive 15 percent of the value of the tax cuts. That is not fair. 
We heard yesterday a whole lot of rhetoric about fairness. There is nothing fair in a Budget that takes away hundreds of millions of dollars from early childhood education and millions of dollars from health and delivers that money to the richest people in New Zealand. That is not a recipe for a fair and equitable New Zealand. That is not a recipe for a country with a long-term plan. This is a short-term Budget that is designed to deliver a bit of money in the pocket that will make people feel good but the value of that becomes eroded over time with the increased rate of GST. This Budget breaks promises. It breaks the promises around GST increases; it breaks the promises about not cutting public services. This Budget will not deliver a future for New Zealanders that will make people decide to stay here. Where is the work in this Budget around ensuring that we have an economy that brings together the environment and the economy? Where is that? The environment was not actually mentioned in the Budget speech yesterday.