Fenton Darien: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:666;Page:13464] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Just for the record I assure the members opposite and the Minister in the chair the Minister of Revenue that Labour supports the Taxation (Annual Rates Trans-Tasman Savings Portability KiwiSaver and Remedial Matters) Bill. The work on it started under a Labour Government— 
Hon Member 
: Go upstairs and talk to Phil. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: No Labour supports this bill as does Phil Goff. He was very very clear and he made some excellent comments during his speech— 
Hon Member 
: And by the way why is your leader here at the Committee stage of the debate? It’s bizarre. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Would National members like us to withdraw our support for this bill? Is that what members opposite would like? Would they like us to spend the next 12 calls criticising this bill? 
The reason we support the bill is because the work started under Labour. We also support ACT’s Supplementary Order Paper which puts back in place some things that were removed by this Government. We support the Government Supplementary Order Papers and we have also introduced an excellent amendment to exempt council rate payments from GST. 
This bill is a hopeful bill. It is hopeful because it hopes that droves of New Zealanders who have gone overseas to live in Australia—those who have gone for a better life because they are not finding it here under this Government and those who are still moving to Australia by the planeload every week as we speak—will come home and bring their savings with them. I ask the Minister and National members opposite why those people would return. Why would they come back from Australia when their GST will increase on 1 October when they will pay more in rates and when this Government has gutted many things particularly for retirees? The Government has made it difficult by cutting support for hearing aid subsidies by cutting home help by cutting elder abuse education by cutting elder driver courses and by allowing ever-increasing electricity bills. Why would people come back from Australia and bring their savings with them? 
There is a good idea behind this bill; retirement savings portability is sensible. We have been told that potentially $16.6 billion in lost contributions from New Zealanders working in Australia could come back to New Zealand under this scheme. The Government hopes that they come back to New Zealand but if even a fraction of lost contributions come back to New Zealand it would have a positive impact. 
It is interesting that the Government in the last couple of weeks has belatedly decided to do something about savings. KiwiSaver is an excellent scheme and the Government has continued with it even though it gutted it at its first Budget when it came into Government. It has had to acknowledge that Michael Cullen Helen Clark and the Labour Government had an excellent idea with KiwiSaver. It has been enormously popular: over a million people have signed up to it. This Government has finally realised that there is a problem with savings and it wants to do something about it. 
Even though it supports KiwiSaver it has of course attacked the Cullen fund. It has stopped the contributions and in typical Government fashion made no decisions. That nice Mr Key has said that the Government will have a committee that will start with a blank sheet. It sounds to me a little like the National plan for the economy—a blank sheet. It will set up a panel of experts who may or may not report back before the next election. As other speakers have said when this Government has no ideas it forms a committee. We have so many committees review groups and so on. I wonder whether one of the first recommendations the committee will make will be to reverse the stupid decisions around suspending contributions to the Cullen fund and to put back the holes that National created in the KiwiSaver scheme when it first came into power. 
Let us think back a little bit about what the Government did under urgency to the KiwiSaver scheme before Christmas 2008. The minimum member contribution rate was reduced from 4 percent to 2 percent and 2 percent became the default contribution rate for new employee members from 1 April 2009. Then of course compulsory employer contributions were capped at 2 percent as well. 
Inevitably we talk a lot about Australia because the Government has no plan for catching up with Australia and we are drifting further and further behind. I cannot help but reflect that the Australians got it right a long time ago. They were smart. They got it right. They got together with the unions and workers— 
Craig Foss 
: They brought in asset testing for superannuation. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: They brought in compulsory superannuation. 
Craig Foss 
: Asset testing. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. They brought in compulsory superannuation.