Smith Lockwood: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16332] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 We would have thought that in that 10-minute third reading speech on the Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill Dr Cullen may have just said something in defence of his tax cut package. Did he say anything at all to defend his package? Not a thing! He just gave personal abuse. You know it shows that he does not actually believe in it at all. In fact if Labour were not so far behind in the polls we would not be seeing this tax cut package because Dr Cullen does not believe in it. If he believed in it for one minute he would have defended it and explained why the structure of the tax cut package made sense—why it was the best way to restructure income tax in New Zealand. We would have thought if he believed it that we might have heard something like that. 
There was not one word defending that tax package because we all know that personal income tax cuts cause Dr Cullen to choke. He can hardly say the words and we know why: Dr Cullen genuinely—and I do not say this unfairly—believes that he knows far better how to spend our money New Zealanders’ money than we do. Ordinary New Zealand people are far too stupid according to Dr Cullen to be trusted with their own money. Dr Cullen knows far better how to spend it! Of course the Rt Hon Helen Clark takes the “Labour Government knows best” approach. I think Labour members genuinely believe this; they think they know how to spend our money so much better. All I can say is that New Zealanders are sick of it. They are heartily sick of this Government telling them how to run their lives how to raise their children and what to have in the school tuck shop—all those things. New Zealanders are sick of this Government telling them how to lead their lives. Taxes have a lot to do with it because people do not have the freedom to lead their lives the way they want to when they are overtaxed. Right at the heart of freedom is the issue of excessive taxation—not enough money being left in people’s own hands for them to actually enjoy freedom in their lives. 
People find it an insult after 9 years of a Labour Government to have a tax cut package just a few months before an election that gives them the equivalent of a block of cheese. That is just so insulting because New Zealanders are seeing—if they look at these Budget documents—a Government that has taken money from ordinary New Zealanders to the point where ordinary New Zealanders struggle to fill the car with petrol struggle to pay for the groceries at the supermarket struggle to get on with finding the money to buy the clothes the uniforms for the kids for sports teams and that sort of thing to enable the children to take part in weekend sport. They struggle with all those things while Labour has been lining its own pockets—the Government’s pockets. If we look at the Budget documents we see the Government has been taking money from New Zealanders and putting it in the Government’s coffers over these last few years in a way that will make New Zealanders angry. The Government has been lining its own pockets at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders and they are totally sick of it. It is little wonder that so many New Zealanders will be angry when we get a block of cheese in October this year and have to wait 18 months to get any more tax relief from this Government and that will be just half a block of cheese. 
It is interesting that the current Minister of Finance Dr Michael Cullen was an Associate Minister of Finance when Labour was last in trouble in 1990 and going out of office. He was also Minister of Social Welfare in 1990. Those of us who were around at that time remember the Budget in 1990 when Dr Cullen and his colleague David Caygill the Minister of Finance came into this House and presented a Budget that claimed there was an $89 million surplus. From memory they had in their supplementary estimates something like $160 million. Before that election in 1990 Dr Cullen who is the current Minister of Finance had without appropriation from this Parliament far exceeded the provisions in that Budget for supplementary estimates. He and Phil Goff who at the time was Minister of Education simply spent money illegally to try to win that 1990 election. I say that without any sort of hesitation. I can say that without hesitation because I took over as Minister of Education from Phil Goff and I had to make legal his illegal spending as Labour desperately tried to win the 1990 election. The very first contact I had with the Ministry of Education was with its financial controller. Within 2 or 3 days of becoming Minister of Education he came to my office and told me there was stuff I just had to know. He laid out in front of me the spending by Phil Goff for which he had no authority whatsoever to try to win votes heading into the election. Dr Michael Cullen did the same thing. 
That is why I was so interested in this tax bill to examine whether it covered the Government’s full promises around Working for Families and what we discovered was it does not. Working for Families has four basic tax credits; this bill indexes only two of them and it does not address the in-work tax credit and theparental tax credit. We discovered during the Committee stage on the bill that the Government currently has a review and that review reports before the end of June. This matter will be in front of Cabinet before the end of June. Does this Budget provide for any increase in in-work payments or parental tax credits under the Government’s flagship Working for Families policy? It says in fact on page 144 in respect of Working for Families that the review of rates is an “unquantified risk”. In other words there are no provisions in here for it. It is an unquantified risk. This Government I will bet if it is behind in the polls after this Budget and heading towards the end of June as the review of the Working for Families tax credits—the in-work payments and the parental tax credits—comes up will take no notice of the fiscal provisions in this Budget. The Government will just spend the money if it is behind in the polls. We have seen it before. Dr Cullen and Phil Goff in 1990 when Labour was last on its way out just spent the money without legal authority. I bet the Government will do it again if it is desperate. 
That is why New Zealanders cannot trust this Government. They are sick to death of this “Big Government knows best” approach from Labour. They are sick to death of being told how to run their lives. They want some financial freedom to get on with their own lives and that will not happen under this Labour Government because this Labour Government will always tax them far more than is necessary to enable these politicians opposite us to do what they want to do. It is time New Zealanders had the chance to be treated with respect—to be treated by a political party that values freedom and understands the value that New Zealanders put on their freedom. Come this next election if National can win that election New Zealanders will once again have the chance to enjoy the privileges of freedom from excessive taxation. It will be the last of the “block of cheese” insults.