Dyson Ruth: Budget Debate 
Dyson Ruth: Budget Debate 
[Volume:639;Page:9633] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 This Budget is not just a huge step forward for savings and for investing in a sustainable future for our country. It is not just a huge gold star for Michael Cullen as Minister of Finance for delivering his eighth and in my view best Budget. It is not just a huge mark of credit to Helen Clark for her leadership openness and honesty in being able to work with several other parties to ensure that the Budget represented not just our aspirations as a Labour-Progressive Government but also the aspirations of our key support parties. This Budget represents a big judgment call and judgment time for the National Party. Budget 2007 asks which way National will jump. 
It has been very obvious from the reactions—particularly from John Key and Bill English—that it is not so much a question of which way National members will jump as a question of which way they are squirming. I have never ever seen demonstrated in this House such extraordinary division between the leader of a party and its finance spokesperson over fundamental economic management. It is just extraordinary. The question remains of which way National will jump. The public of New Zealand has asked how it will judge which way National will jump. Bill English says one thing and John Key says another then John Key changes his mind—as he is wont to do on most days—then Bill English still says something different. 
Perhaps people might look at the record of the National Party. As Minister for Senior Citizens I spend a lot of time with Grey Power groups Age Concern groups and voluntary aged-care organisations up and down the country and they remember the 1990s and what National did for older New Zealanders. National deceived and deserted older New Zealanders. It imposed absolutely unfair regimes. It discouraged working New Zealanders from saving for their retirement and it punished retired people who had done so. 
The most significant of all those deceptions was the magnificent U-turn demonstrated by Jim Bolger. John Key is working his way up to that peak performance in U-turns. Every single New Zealander remembers the big speech in 1990 at the National Party conference where Jim Bolger said the surtax would go if National was elected as the Government. He said that National would attend to it in the first Budget “no ifs no buts no maybes”. And what did National do when it was elected? It set about making the surcharge harsher. What happened to the promise what happened to the pledge which had not been made in a cupboard all alone but in public at a National Party conference? The threshold was increased under National. The rate was raised from 20 percent to 25 percent. So on two critical parts of the surcharge issue National deceived all New Zealanders. For older New Zealanders who are dependent on superannuation for their day-to-day living having secure superannuation is pretty important. 
We have seen in the recent publication  
The Hollow Men 
 that that policy was not just a policy of the 1990s. Don Brash literally said it. His very own personal email is quoted verbatim in  
The Hollow Men 
. He asked how National could package a lie so that older New Zealanders would not know what National would do after the election. Well it is clear that nothing has changed. John Key has taken his leadership advice from exactly the same people that Don Brash took his advice from. 
So National promised to remove the surcharge then it increased it. It promised to inflation-proof superannuation then it cut superannuation relative to the average ordinary-time wage from 65 percent to 60 percent—cut it by 5 percent in terms of that relativity. It promised to increase the single superannuation living alone rate and it reneged on that promise and in fact cut the next increase in the level of superannuation. So people had an actual decrease; they got less than they had expected. National promised that it would raise the age of superannuation entitlement from 60 to 65 over 20 years. It said it would phase in that change. What did National do? It delivered it in 10 years. So those people who had listened to National’s pre-election promises and had planned their future on the basis of the change in the age of entitlement to superannuation being phased in over 20 years suddenly had that time cut in half—it was 10 years. National offered a tax rebate then it scrapped it. On pledge after pledge National not only did not implement the pledge but also went in exactly the opposite direction. It deceived and betrayed older New Zealanders and it is very clear that it would do so again. 
It is also clear from the contributions made in the House so far on the KiwiSaver fund and on the Budget debate generally that the alliance between National and ACT is getting closer. If people want to have a Government that does not support universal superannuation at 65 years of age at 65 percent of the average ordinary-time weekly wage for a married couple if they want an uncertain future for all of those people who are heading towards that age now then they should listen very carefully to what ACT and National are saying. 
In fact David Carter who has just re-entered the House has proposed taking tax cuts out of the Superannuation Fund in order to cut the company tax rate to 25 percent. So every person in Brian Connell’s current electorate which David Carter aspires to be the next member of Parliament for should be wary. Kate Wilkinson aspires to be the member of Parliament for that electorate as well. I am not backing either candidate; that is the National Party’s choice. I do not know why the National Party supported Brian Connell ahead of Kate Wilkinson last time—it may have rethought that. David Carter’s policy would cost about $1.5 billion a year. How can people of our generation have any confidence that superannuation will be there in future? Well under David Carter’s policy there would not be enough money to pay superannuation to 65-year-olds at the rate we currently have. 
We know that even though it is much better that superannuation is an entitlement that people get automatically when they reach that age it is not a very high amount. It is not a great deal of money to live on. We increasingly hear people say they have paid off their houses—because that is what New Zealanders do—and they have good financial security but they do not have enough cash to do the extra things they might like to do. I know that a lot of older people particularly from Kaitaia and other parts of the North Island like to travel south in the middle of winter to Canterbury so that they can get a taste of what a real winter is like. Others might want to go to the Gold Coast to get some warmth. But a lot of people do not have additional money to do that. We know that they are going into home equity release schemes. 
KiwiSaver is one of the major contributors alongside our guaranteeing in law the level the entitlement age and partial funding in advance through the Superannuation Fund. KiwiSaver works alongside that to say: “We are all going to help you save. Your employer your contribution as a worker and the Government through its substantial tax credits to both the employer and the employee will all pitch in so that older New Zealanders in particular have more security.” But KiwiSaver does a number of other things as well. It means that we can own more of our own country. We have fallen far behind in New Zealand ownership of our own country. KiwiSaver provides support for employers and for workers and it supports the New Zealand economy. It ensures that we do not have the sort of pressure on interest rates that would totally undermine any tax cuts given by National as promised. 
This Budget is about New Zealand today but also about New Zealand in the future. That is why the commentators have been so in praise of it commentators like Paul McPadden and John Cantin from the  
National Business Review 
. Paul McPadden wrote: “As part of the good news package for business this budget has come complete with tax credits for R&D expenditure.” John Cantin wrote: “From a business perspective the company tax rate reduction … delivers. Other positive news … includes the introduction of a tax credit …”. Commentator after commentator have said that this is a New Zealand Budget for our security now for our investment in saving and for our investment in the future. This Budget delivers like no other that I have seen in my lifetime. It is a visionary Budget. It is a Budget that puts New Zealand and New Zealanders first.