Groser Tim: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Groser Tim: Taxation (Personal Tax Cuts Annual Rates and Remedial Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16280] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 If there are New Zealanders who are actually listening to the so-called contributions of the last two Government speakers both of whom are Ministers of the Crown they must be wondering what is going on. They must be wondering why it is that in debating what is intended to be a central political event in the political calendar of this country at a time when New Zealanders are in a very real sense under real pressure from real problems facing them and their families two Ministers of the Crown can get up and make a series of jocular irrelevant points as if this is some high school debating society that they represent. I think New Zealanders would say that if this Budget and the tax bill we are actually meant to be debating which is the central part of the Budget strategy were intended to be a circuit-breaker for this Government then right around the country the political lights have just gone out for Labour. That is what I think they will conclude if they have had the misfortunate of listening to the last two Government Ministers speaking on this very important political day on this very important political matter that faces New Zealand families. And when reflecting on the fact that this is the ninth Budget they will see that this is not like reading the final chapter in a book. They will see that this has to be looked at in relationship to the whole story of this Labour three-term Government. 
I just want to take members back to a central point. I have always held the belief—I think many New Zealanders hold the belief—that it is a privilege to be the Government that it is a privilege to be voted in democratically by one’s fellow countrymen and countrywomen and that that implies a great duty of care. It implies overriding all of this a responsibility to take New Zealand forward. I think the test—a fair test but a brutal test—is to ask that if we look at this Budget in relationship to the last 9 years has this Government taken this country forward on its watch? Has this Government addressed fundamental problems facing New Zealand? Has this Government actually addressed the real-world concerns? Or are Government members opposite completely lost as were the last two Ministers of the Crown in making clever irrelevant and essentially high school debating speeches? Is that what their view of their responsibilities really is? 
Let us just look at the tax bill and what it is intended to do in terms of the opportunity at the start of this saga. We had a Government coming in after 8 years of economic growth at an average rate of about 3.5 percent. The rate in the last year of that period 1999 was over 4 percent in real terms. We had had stellar productivity growth in the previous 3 years. We had falling inflation and falling unemployment all set to continue during the new Government’s first 4 or 5 years. The phrase “the end of the golden weather” is the phrase that keeps on coming back to mind and I am sure it is coming back to the minds of many New Zealanders as they stare at this “big cheese Budget”—the $16 a week tax cut! The Government has had the most favourable terms of trade for a generation or more. All of this was fuelling the largest Budget surpluses that any Government has had the unique fortune to inherit—all of it allowing Government members the opportunity to build on wealth creation to make New Zealand a place where people could base their future on to build on the productivity growth of the past and to take this country forward which is their ultimate responsibility. 
This is not just about dollars in the pocket as John Key has pointed out. For the most part we live in a market economy and that means that incentives actually matter. It is not just a matter of dollars in one’s pocket—whether one can go out and pay the bills or whether one can go out and fill the car up important though those are to anyone’s normal daily life—it is also a matter of constructing an economy that can incentivise middle New Zealand to take this country forward. Members opposite have had 9 years to come to terms with this and just as in the case of the emissions trading scheme where they have rushed through an ill-considered response—after doing absolutely nothing in their last 9 years other than spouting rhetoric—so it is exactly the same when it comes to Budget strategy and tax strategy. They have had 9 years of doing nothing on income tax. Oh I am sorry I have forgotten one very important exception to that. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What was that? 
TIM GROSER 
: Well the first action Dr Cullen took was to raise the marginal tax rate to 39c—a completely futile and meaningless gesture later revealed by his extremely impolite and inappropriate comment to John Key which indicated his contempt for anyone with wealth; but we will not go there. So after all that we get this $16 a week. If we divide that by 9 years we get $1.75 a year for all that Government’s time with the stewardship of this country. New Zealanders I think have a right to expect a little more and they will get more from a National Government. First of all they can be guaranteed under a National Government to actually see the second tranche of these tax cuts. We know what the history of this is. We know what the phrase the “chewing gum Budget” was all about. There is an old cynical phrase: “You mislead me once shame on you”— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
TIM GROSER 
: No no I am referring Mr Assistant Speaker to “you” in the general sense not to you as Speaker here or any member here. It is a quote. “If you mislead me once shame on you but if you mislead me twice shame on me.”—shame on me for being so gullible. That is what that old cynical phrase means and I do not think New Zealanders are going to fall for it. I think New Zealanders know what the story is and I think New Zealanders know that actually the only way they can be guaranteed these tax cuts as a minimum is by the election of a National Government. 
But they will not just get a National Government that will validate this minimal movement forward; they will get a Government that understands what the real problem facing New Zealand is which is that we are not on a sustainable trajectory. We suffer from a growth deficit. We need to invest in our future. We need a concerted programme of building up the country’s infrastructure. We need a concerted programme that puts standards back at the back-end of our education system at the primary and intermediate level—standards for numeracy and for literacy. We need a Government that is not committed to a “once every 9 years” process of re-incentivising middle New Zealanders but one that will look for opportunities wherever they arise.