Jones Shane: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:651;Page:179] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena tatou katoa. Firstly I say greetings to you Mr Chairman and I acknowledge the status that has been bestowed upon you. No doubt you sought something else but your very dry and balanced approach from the deep south will balance our liveliness from the north. Tena koe. To those who have been made Ministers I say we look forward to ensuring they earn their keep and to returning all the favours they sought to send in our direction—including Mr Hide who occupies the seat of Winston Peters and who no doubt celebrates his success in politics such as it is by wandering around Auckland and claiming to be the man who buried Winston. He of course will in good time learn that what goes around comes around and I look forward to enjoying many lively whakataetae with him. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There are two things about the Hon Shane Jones’ speech. First he is not actually addressing the Committee stage of the bill which he is required to speak to even at this late stage under urgency. Secondly I have always been quite clear about it being Mr Peters who buried himself and the Labour Party. I did not do anything. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: There were three points coming out of the Speech from the Throne crafted for the Prime Minister. It stated that it is “very clear that at all times strengthening the economy will be front and centre of … priorities. For it is this growth agenda upon which my Government’s vision for New Zealand rests.” Other than the mangled and worsening style of speaking—obviously John Key is the worst presenter we have seen in terms of a Prime Minister—the first thing we see today is the stripping away of the capital base of New Zealand’s industry by this mean-spirited attempt to take away the research and development contributions imagining that somehow the funding will materialise when it has not been there for nigh on a decade. Where is it going to go? It will go to reward the partisan interests of those who have quietly plotted away to bring John Key forward and surely John Key will bring out his foul scheme. 
Not only do we see a complete absence of anything in that speech about how we are to inject greater strength in the capital base of New Zealand’s economy but we see absolutely nothing to grow exports and to grow value-added industries. Rather it is a revision a return back to Ruth Richardson’s approach which is firstly to strip people of their labour rights and secondly to reward those who are doing well and in some way to make the vulnerable and the anxious more insecure as if that will stop the flow of Kiwis going to Australia. And to ensure that the Kiwis whom the Government is supposedly apprehensive about disappearing go even more quickly the Government says it will destroy the KiwiSaver scheme and make it a skeletal anaemic version of what the Aussies enjoy. 
So it is a disappointment Mr Chairman that you so early in your tenure should be exposed to such falsehoods. First the savings regime is being gutted. Secondly this measure is very mean and short-sighted—it fits with Mr English’s Cheshire cat Lewis Carroll style of enigmatic smile which we have tolerated. But the reality of point number two is that these research and development tax credits are indeed business growth credits. When they are stripped away that weakens the firms that are supposedly to grow the jobs and grow the wealth of New Zealand. National is scaring further people away from coming back here because that reduces our competitive advantage to a dreadfully low scale. Thirdly I note a great line here from the Speech from the Throne: “Honourable members. In going for growth”—permanent growth—“my Government will be acutely conscious of the fact that it is … to the detriment of us all to allow an underclass to develop in New Zealand.” I say that without jobs without ongoing investment in firms without the creation of a flow of goods and services through excellent research and without income within the class of those people in our society who are vulnerable and anxious that rhetoric there will be made into a dreadful lie. 
So it will be great over the next 3 years as invidious as this position is proving to be personally to remind all our iwi that the Maori Party is actually supporting a set of initiatives that not a single Maori on the Maori roll voted for. Secondly it will be great to remind that party that it is supporting a group of people who are rewarding a very narrow partisan group within society without a skerrick of concern for the broad base out in the pastoral farming areas and in industry and in the knowledge that the Aussies have double the performance in relation to research and development as a percentage of GDP that we have in our country. Without an initiative of this nature we will never recover. Of course National does not want us to recover. It actually wants to reward that narrow group who are doing reasonably well as it is. One does not send this type of Christmas present without being rewarded with a harsh response.