Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill

I move, That the Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill be now read a second time.

I’m going to start with a quote from Audrey Young on Budget 2020: “Robertson’s $1 billion cost of living package, including a $350 payment for those earning under $70,000, to address immediate inflation pressures is a good one and well-designed, politically. It is hard to see how the National Party could oppose it (although it will) when cost of living pressures consumes its political agenda these days. Labour’s Budget measure of payments is targeted, it gives the lower-paid more than National’s”—[Interruption] Sorry, I’ll say that again for the member: “Labour’s Budget measure of payments is targeted, it gives the lower-paid more than National’s tax-indexation plan, and it is temporary … The Budget cements Robertson’s credentials as careful economic manager, for good times and bad, the Goldilocks manager: not too much, not too little.”

It’s so hard when you’re a member of the National Party, born to rule but languishing on Opposition benches, completely irrelevant, not even able to implement their flawed economic plans. They’re left with jingoistic messages and misrepresentation of both the current state of the economy and their own history over the years. You know, the National Party seems to always forget that average growth rates under Labour administrations compared with under National administrations—Labour does better. This is not just the short-term average; this is an average that goes back to World War II. Since World War II, growth rates are better under Labour administrations than they are under National administrations.

The tone of gloom from those depressing, if irrelevant, speeches from the National Party in the first reading—it ignores the fact that we’ve just had two triple A credit ratings from the top credit rating agencies in the world. Did you hear the National Party make any reference to that? No, no. Unemployment rate—did you hear them celebrating historically low unemployment rates of 3.2 percent per annum? No—3.2 percent unemployment rate, historically low in New Zealand, and the National Party cannot acknowledge or celebrate it. They talk about Government debt—Government debt—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: What’s this got to do with the bill?

Hon DAVID PARKER: What’s this got to do with the bill? Well, it’s got as much to do with the bill, Mr Goldsmith, as it had in your contributions from your side when you rattled on about Government debt, which in New Zealand is half the rate of Government debt as a percentage of the economy in Australia, a quarter of that of the United Kingdom, and a fifth of that of the United States.

Then they said—and this is to quote one of the last speakers for the National Party—“spending like there’s no tomorrow”, “addicted to spending”, “a horrific scale of expenditure”. This sort of exaggerated rhetoric from the National Party falls on deaf ears amongst the public because they know it’s not right.

I thought I’d drag out the record of the National Party under Bill English and their expenditure as a percentage of GDP compared with the expenditure of this Government in this Budget as a percentage of GDP. This Budget projects expenditure of 31.6 percent of GDP. How does that compare with the National Party’s expenditure? Quietness from the other side. Perhaps they’ve forgotten. I’m quite happy to remind them: 2009-2010, 32.3 percent. They’ll say, “Oh well, that’s just after the Labour Party left office.” OK, fair enough. What happened the next year? It went up: 34.1 percent of GDP compared with this year, 31.6 percent of GDP.

I see the Speaker wants me to come back to the bill. I will do—I will do. This bill promises 2.1 million New Zealanders a payment of $350 each, spread over three months. This will help New Zealanders facing cost of living pressure. It is very, very good. It’s equivalent to $27 per week over that period, and it’s much more than the National Party’s alternatives that they have been speaking of.

The legislation is necessary because at the moment the revenue department has not got the ability to use information that it holds for tax return purposes, like bank account numbers, for the purposes of this payment of $350. We want to get this payment out to people as soon as we can, and, in order to do that, we’ve got to give the revenue department the powers that they need to do it. There are a number of technical amendments that are made through this legislation, which I have no doubt that we will have a discussion about in more detail in the committee of the whole House stage.

Far from spending like drunken sailors, as has been alleged, we have a very balanced Budget here, although it’s primarily focused on expenditure in the health sector. There is cost of living support here—a package that totals $1 billion, the largest part of which is $800 million, which relates to this $350 per person paid to over 2.1 million New Zealanders.

I find it absolutely astounding that the National Party, after all of their rhetoric about being on the side of the pressed middle, is opposing this legislation—

Todd Muller: Squeezed middle.

Hon DAVID PARKER: The squeezed middle—the squeezed middle. And they are squeezed by inflation. We agree with that. The Budget projections show that, in out-years, wage growth again exceeds inflation. Of course, in the Labour Party we don’t have a problem with people getting wage increases, which the National Party seems to squeeze when they’re in Government and have very low rates of wage growth.

So I commend this bill to the House in the second reading and look forward to the committee stage

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6.02 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. We’ve had the dinner break. We’ve all watched the news and reporting of this Budget, which has flocked across the country. The previous speaker referred to Audrey Young’s glowing reference to the “Goldilocks Budget”. I’m afraid, being the true Goldilocks around here, that Audrey was a bit off beam there and what we’ve seen, actually, throughout the rest of the country is an incredulity that this Government could take so much money off the hands of New Zealanders with extra taxation, with proposals for a new jobs tax coming around the corner, and then expect everybody to be happy with $350—to some people. Some people have been unkind enough to suggest that’s about almost an economy flight to Sydney to start a new life in a place where hard work and enterprise gets better shrift than it does under this Government. And so we’re absolutely focused on the cost of living crisis.

There’s been no debate in this House this evening around the issue facing all New Zealanders, and that is this cost of living crisis that New Zealand families are facing, the difficulty of funding their way through to pay for the food on their table, the gas in their tanks, and to make ends meet. The only difficulty, and, I suppose, the only complication, is that the members of this Government, the Ministers in this Government, and the backbenchers who are sitting over there hanging their heads wondering about what their future is going to be—the only surprising thing was that those people, those 50-odd New Zealanders, were the last people to wake up to the fact that there was a cost of living crisis in this country and that’s what people were focused on. And so their plans for this Budget all along were to focus on climate change and the biggest health restructuring in the middle of a COVID crisis. And that was the plan for the Budget and it was all sweet.

Then, about three or four weeks, maybe a couple of months, ago, perhaps related to the publishing of some polls—I don’t know—the Government suddenly woke up and thought, “Heck, we haven’t done anything about that that, in any remote way, addresses the issue of the day, which is the issue that is most in front of mind of all New Zealanders: how do we actually make ends meet? How do we deal with the fact that prices are going up everywhere and it’s harder to make a living and it’s harder to keep food on the table?” There was nothing really planned, and so they threw together this last-minute piece of legislation that we’re dealing with today, which, along with a couple of cheaper bus fares for a couple of months, and another couple of months trying to deal with the issue of petrol prices and diesel prices, which will all be welcomed—but all they’re doing is applying a band-aid on to a much deeper, long-term situation, which is the fact that inflation has got out of control in this country and that New Zealanders are going backwards under this Government, and inflation, the costs of goods are going up faster than wages. Therefore, as everybody can see, everybody can understand—it’s as obvious as the nose in front of your face—New Zealanders have been going backwards under this Government. As I said in the previous speech, the only thing going forwards is the stolen cars driven by 11-year-olds into ram raids. That is not what New Zealanders are hoping for or looking for, and they’re looking for a Government that understands the importance of having a strong economy, fighting inflation, and ensuring that wages are going faster than inflation.

So this legislation comes in and brings in a $350 payment. That’s their plan. That’s their belated plan to deal with the cost of living crisis, and we are voting against it quite simply because we think our plan is better. Our plan is to leave more money out of the pockets of New Zealanders, not take like this Government is doing sneakily. Every week, every month, this Government is stealthily putting up taxes. They’re increasing taxes because they are not adjusting the tax thresholds for inflation. And over the course of a year it adds up significantly, to the extent that the average household on an average income have had $1,600 dollars a year of extra taxes taken off them by this Government to fill Grant Robertson’s insatiable hunger for more tax revenue. This Minister, this Government, Grant Robertson has been the most rapacious tax collector in this country’s history. I thought nobody would ever beat Michael Cullen, but he has. There is never enough tax for this Government because they will always spend more, and we’re always going to be left with larger deficits and they’re going to be wanting to spend more.

Now, New Zealanders can, quite rightly, look at this situation and say, “Well, there are some things that we could usually spend more money on, but it’s just a pity that there is no connection between the spending and the delivery in this Government, and that’s the slight problem.” And so when they see the billions of dollars that are going to be thrown at the health system, there is no confidence that it will lead to better outcomes, because we all looked, two years ago, to $1.9 billion promised on mental health and there has been no actual improvement in the services available to people who need the mental health work in so many areas. So people are rightly sceptical of the potential for actual progress from all the money that has been spent. Everybody agrees that New Zealanders are doing it tough right now. Everybody agrees that we need to put more money into the pockets of New Zealanders so that they can deal with the rising prices and cost of living crisis.

The difference is that on our side we believe that actually a very simple way to start is to stop taking quite so much money in the first place and not use inflation to stealthily and sneakily take more taxes from New Zealanders, as this Government has. That’s our proposal. This Government, instead—“No, no. We’re going to keep on putting taxes up. Every month, every year, we’ll just sneak a little bit more. We’ll use inflation.” That’s why tax revenues are flooding into this Government. “We’re going to use it all and spend it”—on a very poor quality spend most of the time. “And in the meantime, because we’re a little bit worried about the broader issue, we’ll extend the cheap bus rides for an extra couple of months and we’ll extend the winter payments for $350. And if you’re earning the average wage in this country, tough luck. You’re too rich. We’re not interested in you.”

That is not the message that New Zealanders want to hear. It’s not the messages that we need to be hearing in this country. That’s why we won’t be voting for this band-aid economics that the Labour Government seems to have picked up. Throw a little bit of sugar around for a few months, hope for something to turn up, and kick the can down the road. I don’t know how Mr Robertson and his team are going to wind up all the extra help on the diesel and the petrol. It’s going to be interesting. When it comes to an end in a couple of months, what are they going to do? That’s going to be quite difficult for them. The point is what they’re not prepared to do is to give back some of the taxes that they keep on taking from the pockets of New Zealanders.

So he’s clearly thrown this together at the last moment just before the Budget to deal with the issue of the day, which hadn’t really been on their radar up until then. They’ve been focused, as I said, on a massive health restructuring that continues to leave the whole health sector in a state of complete chaos in the middle of winter when we’re dealing with COVID. If we think of, even, the Upper Hutt Hospital situation, the people that are supposed to be dealing with it are about to lose their jobs—they’re about to lose their jobs and they’re supposed to be dealing with a health crisis. They’re going to be replaced in six months and there’ll be a whole lot of emails in the inbox of this new organisation for some manager that will appear from somewhere, and they’ll have to figure out what’s going on while everybody else has left the room. So it’s a bizarre situation there and that’s where most of the new money in this Budget has gone: into feeding this great beast; the most ill-timed restructuring that you could possibly imagine.

And in the meantime, the Kiwis who are doing it tough in Kaitāia, in Whangārei, in Huntly, in places all around the country, looking at the price rises, going up, looking at all the pressure that they’re under in their households, particularly the hard-working families who are both working hard, getting an average income in New Zealand, getting 70,000, 80,000 bucks a year, working hard, trying to provide for their family, feeling like they’re not getting ahead because of the increased rents that they are having to face. Rents have gone up substantially under this Government.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Shall we do rent controls, Paul?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: They’ve—pardon me?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Shall we do some rent controls, then?

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well, that’s a typical response from the Greens. Rather than deal with the driving causes of the housing going up, all the costs that they’ve added on, the idea that they’re suddenly had, that if you pile costs on to those who provide the housing, there is perhaps the slight possibility that some of those costs will be passed on to the renters! That seems to be beyond their logic to understand that that is a possibility: if you add a whole lot of costs on to landlords, there is a slight possibility that some of those costs will be passed on to the renters. That, indeed, is what’s happened. They spend their whole time advocating for more costs, and then they complain about the fact that the price goes up, and then the solution to it is to put some rent controls on. I mean, there goes the Greens.

It’s a funny thing for this Government that their coalition partner, the Greens, couldn’t even bring themselves to vote for this legislation. So we’ve just had the Budget and they’ve stood there and they’ve said, “Oh, how wonderful we are. We’re a Government with the Labour and the Greens.”, but the Greens aren’t voting for the first piece of legislation that they’ve brought through. That’s how muddled this Government is.

Order! Order! The member’s time is up. Before I call the next speaker, may I ask the member of the ACT Party to take his pink box off the desktop, please.

Chris Bishop: He’s not the leader.

Damien Smith: Sorry, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I said the “member”, not the “leader”.

It’s a pleasure to take this call on the Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill and be the first Government speaker after the dinner break on this Budget day.

Look, we’ve all had the chance in the Labour Party to partake of some KFC with our colleagues from the Greens and Te Paati Māori, but the Opposition, instead, decided to go and have a peek at what the major news outlets had to say about the Budget instead, and we heard that in Paul Goldsmith’s comments. They would’ve been disappointed to hear Newshub describe the Budget as a masterstroke by the Government and that the Opposition has been backed into a corner, and indeed they have been. They’ve been caught flat-footed by the cost of living package in this Budget. Here they are voting against a bill that will see $350 paid to low and middle income families over the coming months. It will do a lot to address the pressures that people are under, alongside the measures to support free, reduced costs public transport, the winter energy payments, and our actions on fuel costs.

This Budget is about protecting our security as a nation, and it extends the Labour Government’s efforts to protect our people, just like we did through the pandemic, against threats from outside. If you think about that, we have done that through the pandemic and we continue that in the face of this economic crisis. So the pandemic has led to both supply chain problems and then that was compounded by Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, causing rising inflation in New Zealand and also across the globe, putting economic pressure on families. This Government bill is about providing cash to alleviate the pressure on the cost of living for people earning less than $70,000 and who are not eligible for the winter energy payment. Just like in the pandemic, we are protecting people—that’s what this bill does: contributes to our security.

Now, you might ask, “Is it enough?” It is a contribution and other important contributions are made through other measures. It will help 2.1 million people, and students are eligible for this help. Now, the Opposition have a different policy. They have proposed tax cuts that will benefit our wealthiest earners to address the pressure on the cost of living. That won’t help low and middle income earners. And, in fact, that approach has been criticised by the IMF who advises against tax cuts at this point. So there is no economic basis to the opposition to this bill, or to the Opposition’s tax policy. This balanced Budget has presented. It is targeted at those who need it most without making inflation worse.

When I look across the Government’s agenda, I see that this approach of securing our people is widespread throughout the Budget—for example, another disruption of people’s security and their livelihoods is threats to their health, and yet we have strengthened our health system through this Budget. We have addressed inequities that have been profoundly unfair throughout our history by funding and developing a Māori Health Authority. We have cleared the DHB debts that have constrained them for far too long in terms of taking new measures to protect the health of their people. We are investing $61 million in public health systems that’ll ensure we don’t have to reconstruct an underfunded public health system in the face of a pandemic ever again. We are ensuring that the system is responsive to those it has never served before, and I’m thinking particularly about our measures for the rainbow community or for people who suffer with dementia.

Another threat to our security is climate change; in fact, in many ways you could describe it as the mother of all threats. It causes sea-level rise that endangers our homes, it damages ecosystems on which we depend, and it damages crops and our food supply. This Budget, through the emissions reduction plan and associated funding, secures us against the risk of these threats. We have a number of initiatives, including to promote the transition to electric vehicles, to reduce methane emissions in agriculture through investment in science, and through improving the use of biofuels and renewables in our energy supply. Budget ’22 secures a positive future for New Zealanders. It is not too late for the Opposition to change their votes. I commend this bill to the House.

The last speaker—the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall—says, “It’s not too late for the Opposition to change their mind.” Well, I want to let her into a little bit of a secret, and that is the Opposition will not be changing their mind. We are strongly opposed to this bill. It is a great shame, because, normally, as bills go through this House, we would have had the opportunity to go through a select committee process, and I’m sure, looking at this bill, it would have gone through the Finance and Expenditure Committee, of which I’m a member—and I see a number of my colleagues around the room in there. But, of course, this bill has not been through any due process. It has not been through a select committee process, and so we are here, under urgency, reviewing a bill which is absolutely full of holes.

This evening, in my short call, I’m going to run everyone through, at home, where the issues are in this bill. And I want to reinforce to those people at home that think that this Government has got a plan, that this Government has been thinking about this bill for a long time, that this Government, when they drafted this bill, have considered a lot of options and have been very thoughtful—I’m going to, sadly, put the facts on the table to show that, actually, this bill has been made up on the hoof. It is a bill that has been made up, probably, only in the last four to six weeks, and it is absolutely, categorically clear that this bill is full of holes. And that shows a Government that doesn’t have a plan. It is not clear in terms of what they’re trying to deliver and, more importantly, they don’t have a sense of what the reality is on the ground for hard-working Kiwis.

Today, we heard the outlining of Government spending related to this, of which this bill is going to contribute in the region of $6.5 billion this year alone. That is the single biggest outlay of Government spending, and this bill, in terms of its fiscal cost, will account for about $800 million of that spend. And I want to quote to you some of the words around in the supplementary analysis report of this, and I’ll tell you what: of course, we didn’t have the bill till only prior to the first reading, unlike this Government which had been working on this for about four to six weeks. But I only got to page 3, and I got five points, so let’s just go through those and work those through.

The fiscal cost of payments is expected to be $747 million. This is based on a payment of $350 to an estimated 2.136 million recipients. That estimate is highly uncertain, because the size of the eligible population is unknown. Well, how about that? So we’ve got a policy here that actually is targeting a population that the officials have indicated—they’re not even sure how many people are there. So given the fact that they don’t know how big the eligible population is, they’ve put a round number of $800 million because of the uncertainty around that estimate. So that’s the first example. For those sitting at home, going, “Well, you know, this is tough; it’s a tough business. Everyone’s under pressure at the moment.” Well, that just gives you an indication that even the fiscal costs of this bill haven’t been well thought through or, actually, haven’t got any real substantive basis in order to back them up.

The second aspect goes right back in the executive summary of the supplementary analysis around the options analysis, so you’d expect that the Government would consider a number of options to deal with the problem of a cost of living crisis that is impacting Kiwis and has been around for pretty much most of this year. But oh, no, no. They haven’t. The line at the top on page 2 reads, “The Treasury recommended against progressing a broad-based payment.” So even the Treasury do not support this bill if you look at the first line of page 2 of that analysis. And they go on to provide the details why, which is all pretty sensible stuff. But, of course, a Government that is well known for not listening, for not taking on feedback, and for thinking that they know best had just kept on trucking on and continuing with this bill.

I now want to move to the next category in the report, which talks about the eligible population. The eligible population criteria for this bill is like a sieve, right. It is just full of holes, and we’ll get into that in the committee of the whole House stage. But I want to just cover off the key element here. Again, I quote: “Inland Revenue was not able to accurately forecast the number of eligible individuals for the 2021/22 tax year.”—i.e., IRD, the department which is going to be responsible for implementing these payments on 1 August, if they are lucky, are not able to forecast who is going to be eligible for this payment.

This is not a joke. Just for those that are at home, watching this thinking, “Maybe, I’ve flicked onto a wrong channel and am looking at bloopers within Parliament or something like that.” This is no joke. This is the reality of a Government who is completely out of touch, a Government and a Minister who are not over the detail, and what this shows is this bill has been thought up on the hoof, probably as a result of a bad poll. These guys have got desperate. They’ve gone, “Oh crikey, we haven’t got anything to deal with that issue. What have we got? Let’s have a go at this.” And their own officials—whose heads are down at the moment, going, “Crikey, what are we going to say to the Minister in the committee stage?”—are saying this is not able to accurately forecast that. It’s in the supplementary analysis report. That’s the facts; that’s where it is. And I’m hearing on the other side a little bit of comment that they don’t seem to believe it. They just need to read their own report.

I want to go on, as well, because I’ve covered three. But let’s talk about the administrative impacts of this bill—again, in that report. And, again, the Inland Revenue officials have provided some guidance on this. “This payment”—and I quote—“would require Inland Revenue to devote a significant number of their front-line staff to deliver the payment and manage the contact-seeking support about this payment during one of Inland Revenue’s busiest periods.” Just think about that. Let’s just throw this payment to individuals in New Zealand—2 million or so people—at the busiest time for Inland Revenue, but that Government doesn’t care about those Public Service individuals, they don’t care about the burden that this will place on them, and they absolutely wouldn’t even understand the reality and the implications of implementing a bill. And what they’ve gone on to say—the Inland Revenue has anticipated that the resources required in order to implement this are in the region of 750 fulltime-equivalent hours being required—and I quote—“in the weeks of 1 August, 1 September, and 1 October.”—750 resources. Where are these people going to come from? Well, I can tell you where they’re going to come from: they’re not going to come from anywhere, because the Minister has not got over the detail. He’s come up with a plan, he’s come up with a policy and a bill, but he has not thought through the detail on how this is going to be implemented.

And I haven’t even talked about the fact that this bill in terms of $27 a week—as I mentioned to you before—is about 9 litres of fuel for the Toyota Corolla. That is the extent. I heard before—one of the people said, “It doesn’t even get you an Uber Eats for a week.” This is inconsequential in terms of what real, hard-working Kiwis across this country are facing in terms of cost pressures on their lives right now. The ASB Bank has outlined that the cost of living increase for food alone for most families in this country is in the region of $150 a week.

Twenty seven dollars for those under $70,000 and, again, the criteria is pretty loose. You only have to be in New Zealand and a New Zealand tax resident. Do you have to be a permanent resident? Do you have to be a resident in New Zealand or, actually, can you be someone from overseas who’s working here on a working holiday visa and still get the payment? Well, I would be interested to hear the answer for that from the Minister in the next stage, because when hard-working Kiwis at home find out the reality that this is just another example of policy that has not been thought out, policy that is not going to deliver the outcomes required for hard-working Kiwis, they are going to be even more disappointed in a Government that they do not trust.

I’ve given an insight, a little bit, into five key areas within the first three pages of a document provided by officials in regard to this bill. I think it categorically proves and substantiates that this bill has been made up on the hoof. It is a broken bill built on a backward Budget by a Government that doesn’t have a plan, a Government that is out of touch with hard-working Kiwis across this country. National opposes this bill.

Let me tell you what motivates this bill. It is a simple question: how can we help low and middle income New Zealanders? How can we help people who are doing it tough because there is a worldwide inflation problem? How can we help people in this country who don’t get benefits, don’t get the winter energy payment, and don’t get super? What can we do for people who some on the other side like to refer to as the squeezed middle? The answer is that we have a cost of living package that is designed to help exactly those people. It’s based around cutting transport costs and putting some money in people’s back pockets. That is what motivates this bill.

The Opposition have been quibbling over it. First of all, they’ve complained that they don’t know the detail. The most recent speaker—Simon Watts—said he wasn’t sure whether it applied to New Zealand tax residents or New Zealand residents. Well, frankly, I do know that detail and he clearly does not. Tax residency is quite different from residency for citizenship purposes, and people who complain about knowing the detail ought to know that in the first place before they get up and complain about it. It’s straightforward—it goes to New Zealand tax residents, people who have been residents in New Zealand for 183 days or more within a one-year period. It’s quite straightforward. Anyone who wants to comment on tax ought to be able to tell you that.

But going on from that, they complained about the fact that perhaps IRD might not be able to tell us exactly how many people are going to be affected by this bill and are going to be eligible for the payment. Again, there’s a straightforward reason for that. The 2021-22 tax year returns processing is not yet finished. So the Inland Revenue Department can’t know exactly how many people will benefit from it, but they know about how many. We know it’s going to be about 2.1 million New Zealanders—close enough to get enough fiscal cost on it. In fact, anyone with a good business brain ought to be able to sort that out, and we can do that on this side of the House.

Simon Watts: This is a bit embarrassing, Minister. She’s pointing out where all the gaps in your bill are.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order on this side of the House! You’ve had a chance to make your speech; now I’d like to hear Dr Deborah Russell.

Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: They pointed out that it’s going to be tough for IRD to process these payments. Yes, it is going to be tough. It is a big ask. But we’re pretty confident that IRD can manage it. It will be tough, it will be hard, but, you know, times are tough and hard out there for ordinary New Zealanders, and that is why we are doing our best to answer that question: how can we help low and middle income New Zealanders? This is a new and unusual policy in New Zealand. We haven’t done something like this for a very long time. It is unusual, but that does not mean it should not be done. The times demand that we try something new and that is exactly what we are doing in this space.

I want to address some of the words that were used by Paul Goldsmith in speaking on this bill recently. I heard words like “rapacious” and “aggressively greedy” as though somehow a Government trying to collect the money it needs in order to fund services is greedy about it, and, of course, that ties into the mantra from the other side about tax cuts. They talk about tax cuts but they never talk about service cuts. They never talk about running down the health system, which is what you have to do in order to fund tax cuts. They never talk about short-changing the education system, which is what you have to do in order to have tax cuts. They never talk about the services that we provide for all New Zealanders because that is the best way we can ensure the wellbeing of New Zealanders: by making sure there is a decent health system, by making sure there is a decent welfare system, and by making sure there is a decent education system. That is also how we look after New Zealanders, and in order to that we need to have a decent tax system. Simply chanting “tax cuts” without saying where you would cut services is irresponsible and it shows an Opposition that is not prepared to do the hard work—on this side of the House we are, and on this side of the House we are confident that this payment will help New Zealanders. It will put money in people’s pockets. It will help just a little bit. It will make a bit of a contribution to the issues we all have with inflation at the moment, and that is why I am proud to support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Reflecting on the fact that through the course of this debate, I’ve been hearing National Party members advocating for cuts to taxes and, effectively, services and, at the same time, also throwing some dog-whistles about this bill potentially reaching some of our migrant communities—so I think we’ve got this kind of scapegoating narrative on the one hand, and then the Labour Party members are expressing concern about the wellbeing of low-income New Zealanders. And I agree: the Green Party is deeply concerned about the state of our inequality crisis and the fact that so many low-income New Zealanders are doing it tough. This is why we are deeply frustrated that this cost of living payment bill is not reaching some of those New Zealanders who are doing it the toughest: people who are on the main benefit, some of our senior citizens who are relying on superannuation and they’re still renting and are struggling to make ends meet. It makes absolutely no sense to be giving a stimulus and exclude some of the people who have been doing it the toughest.

I was looking at the departmental disclosure statement and one of the sections was around external consultation, and there was, basically, an admission that stakeholders other than key Government departments were not consulted on the proposals of the bill. For the purpose of this bill, I think we’ve got a trove of feedback from community, from researchers, and from advocates on the ground about the state of things in Aotearoa and the fact that poverty continues to be a massive issue. The Government could have looked at the Fairer Future report which showed that some families are $300 a week behind to be able to participate in their communities. The Government could have listened to the countless people on the benefit who are speaking about the need to constantly go to Work and Income to get a hardship grant because they cannot make ends meet. They could have listened to the stories that have been out there for so many years. So while I would have loved for the Government to consult with key stakeholders and communities affected, they could have also looked at what was already out there and realised that including people on benefits would have been the right thing if their genuine intent was to support low-income communities.

I look back at the narratives that this Government was talking about when it came to the intent of the Budget, which was to ensure that our communities are healthy. I repeat what I said in the first reading speech: if we want our communities to stay healthy, we need to address low incomes, because far too many communities are getting sick because they don’t have adequate and abundant kai because they’re stressed from not being able to meet rent and because they’re transient from moving to one emergency housing place to another.

So if this Government is serious about our community staying healthy, they should be looking at including people on the benefit in this bill, ensuring that everyone is looked after and committing to permanent increases to incomes for the families that are doing it the toughest. The inequality crisis did not start with the rising inflation or the war in Ukraine that has caused some basic essentials to go up; it has been here since before even this Government came into power. If we’re going to do service to the communities that we talk about, that we serve, then I urge this Government to include people on the benefit and to look at permanent welfare reforms so that all of our communities are able to thrive and fully participate in our communities. Kia ora.

I wonder what Mr Thomas Piketty would make of this, in terms of the structuring and hastiness of this social policy. I was very interested in how the coronation was met between this payment and rising sea levels and methane emissions by the associate health Minister, so that left me rather confused.

In terms of prioritising funding from this—let me just imagine what happened in Cabinet. Newshub poll came in, three-quarters of New Zealanders said, “This Government’s just not helping with the cost of living.”, and everybody sat around and went, “What do we do? What money have we got? Let’s reel a billion dollars out of the last of the COVID fund.” “Yeah. That’s good. Let’s use that to give a payment to everyone out there and that’ll get us through that two-month period.” I think that’s probably what happened. I think it’s probably very simple to ascertain that several of the Ministers would probably have went, “Hmm. This is not, maybe, the way to go.”, but public pressure is an amazing thing when it comes to polling and politics at this time.

That’s what the ACT alternative budget, which is fully costed, would give people thousands of dollars to help with this crisis; not $27 a week.

Hon David Bennett: What about services?

DAMIEN SMITH: And then—we have kept essential health services; we’ve just reduced Government spending. That is the logical way for the Government to have embraced the significant milestone in this Budget today. But, nope, the golden goose doesn’t apply to Kiwis. A key part of the Budget is to tokenise payments which are exciting a lot of young people, actually, tonight, around the country. People between 18 and 20 are all thinking, “Right, here’s some money to go down to the pub. It’s all good.” There’s four in a household, that’s a good old session if you get these payments rolling in. Surely that should have been thought about and tested as being inappropriate; a mass blanket payment under this Budget.

So if you’re weighing up what’s happening in Australia, there’s still a $6,000 gap between what they earn and what we earn. Structurally, we’ve got to embrace getting this right and doing it right, as opposed to this type of payment.

If you look at the COVID fund and the uses over the period, it’s had many, many iterations but not one like this sugar hit that’s come out today. We have to believe that a cost of living payment for a short period of time isn’t going to solve the long-term problems of inflation in this country. The Green Party have recognised that the cost of rentals, the costs of superannuates, people without savings—there are social issues out there that, over the last four years, has led to a gap significantly increasing between what people were paying in tax with a Labour Government and now what they’re paying today.

In terms of oversight of this payment, it must be pretty embarrassing to a Government and Treasury to be not on the same page. This is the cost of a vote, I guess, in terms of pacifying people. But what happens now, in six months’ time, in a year’s time, at the next Budget? Will we have the tax cut Budget then, or should it have been done now? In terms of our view of the world, it’s clear that the Government sees and Mr Robertson sees Kiwi people’s money as being something that is to be consumed by the Government and even before it’s taxed. So he’s once again used a Budget to reward political support.

We have to be honest, it says that this cost of living payment doesn’t really secure anybody’s future tonight. It helps with someone that comes in and buys a couple of loaves of bread, some cheese, maybe a little bit of butter—and I’ve probably overestimated those.

So, in terms of taking this seriously, we still want to encourage the Minister in the next Budget to adopt ACT’s two-step principles of reducing income tax for hard-working people to 17.5 percent up to $70,000, which would help nurses, it would help families, it would help teachers, it would help anybody who, now, the Labour Party are recognising aren’t the squeezed middle after this speech tonight. It would allow a top tax rate of 28 percent to be put in place for people who already pay their tax at the top end and work hard and contribute to this economy.

Inflation is not going away. The Reserve Bank have said that in the Monetary Policy Statement next week. The Official Cash Rate uplift will be heading towards 3 percent to 3.5 percent, which means extensive raising of interest rate payments in mortgages, and, also, if you’ve got young people under the roof of your house, the expenses are going to go up even further. This is a very serious situation. Growth estimated at now 2 percent per annum, as opposed to 5 percent. So we have a lot of forces that are going to cause potential instability.

The appetite for Government spending is just insatiable; we’ll know in two years’ time whether it’s worked and/or we’ve got billions of dollars that have been put out the door that haven’t got any traction, haven’t achieved any results—especially in the health sector—and we know that people aren’t going to stop complaining tomorrow about the cost of living crisis that is here in New Zealand. This is not going to stop this. There’ll be another poll in a months’ time which will still say people have still got the same issues that they have and nothing has been fixed by this Government. So we will be opposing this bill, but we’d like to speak to the Minister and the parties about a more extensive tax structuring philosophy when it comes to the Budget next year.

Madam Speaker, thanks for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. I think that there is a reason why the ACT Party are languishing in the polls, because there was no clear understanding of a plan to deal with the issues that are facing New Zealanders. Whereas—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I remind the member to come back to the bill.

JAMIE STRANGE: —I’m proud to be part of a Government who are supporting New Zealanders—hard-working New Zealanders—supporting middle New Zealand as they go about their lives. And the reality is—as we have heard in this debate from all sides of the House, we all acknowledge it—there are challenges with the cost of living. There are inflationary pressures happening around the globe. We do have a strong economy here in New Zealand. We have an economy that is very much export-led, primarily based on producing food for the world. The world will always need food, and we do that very well. We’re growing, we’re diversifying our economy into areas like tech, various manufacturing forms, and we are continuing to grow our economy. And as we heard from the Minister previously in this debate, we have had many years of positive GDP under Labour Governments. All through the early 2000s—high levels of GDP growth. And that growth has continued.

Obviously, COVID was a challenge. At the moment, we’re faced with a particular challenge in terms of the cost of inflation. Even though we do have a strong economy, we are not immune to the pressures that are faced around the world. This is a Government who are listening to the people on the streets. We’re in touch with New Zealanders. We’re not out of touch with New Zealanders, like some members opposite. We have a plan to support New Zealanders because we understand the challenges that we’re going through.

Clearly, this plan to fuel money into the economy to support New Zealanders—a $350 payment for those earning under $70,000. When we compare that to the National Party, the National Party have some sort of vague plan around tax cuts for those at the top. And the National Party have said, previously, there’s this trickle-down philosophy, and, hopefully, one of the next speakers from the National Party can enlighten us a bit more about that, because the idea of giving money, giving tax cuts, to those at the top and expecting that money to trickle down to those in the middle and those at the bottom is a fallacy—it’s a fallacy—it does not work. Those at the top, they’ll spend their money overseas, they’ll go on overseas holidays, they might buy another five houses or something. Whereas, if you support middle New Zealand and those at the lower end, like we did on 1 April—

Damien Smith: You didn’t get the memo about this bill.

JAMIE STRANGE: —I’m trying to hear the member—that money will go directly into the economy; it will support businesses. Now, some people will say, “Well, won’t that fuel inflation?” Well, we’ve been told by Treasury, because it’s a short-term payment of $350 over three payments, it won’t negatively affect inflation. However, it will have the impact of supporting New Zealanders as they go to the supermarket, as they go to the petrol pump, because certainly there are challenges here.

I’d like to acknowledge the Minister Grant Robertson for his speech today. He has delivered a Budget that strikes the right balance in terms of supporting New Zealanders now and looking long term. This bill here is a part of that Budget. This bill plays an important role in supporting New Zealanders right now, because we’re hearing what people are saying. We’re out there on the streets, listening—we’re not sitting in our ivory towers, locked away; we’re on the streets, listening to New Zealanders. New Zealanders have clearly told us that they’re struggling with the cost of living, and we’re listening and we’re responding. I’m proud to be a part of a Government that listens to New Zealanders and that is supporting them.

The next call is a split call. I call on Matt Doocey—five minutes.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. What is the purpose of a Labour Government if it doesn’t stand up for working people? Here we have a bill tonight where the average Kiwi on the average wage will get nothing out of this bill. The average Kiwi on the average wage of $72,000 will get a big New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) zero—you know those zeros that NZTA wasted $10,000 dollars on? An average Kiwi on the average wage will get nothing. There was a time when a Labour Government would stand up for hard-working Kiwis; they do not represent working Kiwis any more. It’s on a guaranteed tax plan that a National Government will stand up for hard-working Kiwis.

We have not had any time tonight to interrogate this bill. We’ve had no committee of the whole House stage. But what I want the Government members to do is to start fleshing this bill out—start explaining to us: why do you need 750 full-time equivalents to deliver this bill? What we know with a Labour Government is that won’t be a ceiling; that will be a minimum. So we’re looking at about 1,000 more bureaucrats on top of the 10,000 they’ve already employed. What will be the cost, Minister, of that 1,000 extra bureaucrats to administer that? The bill says it will cost $16 million. Is that including the extra funding that’s in the paperwork that none of the Government MPs have talked about? IRD has asked for extra funding to employ the 750 fulltime-equivalents. How much is that going to cost? Ten thousand bureaucrats plus 1,000—now we’re up to 11,000. When is it going to stop?

Even the Minister in his first reading admitted 200,000 Kiwis who are entitled to this—they don’t even have their bank account details. Over 10 percent—they don’t even have the details. Let’s be honest: who would trust these guys to run a hot bath, let alone deliver a programme like this? This is destined for failure. Why we know that is because one of the very few documents we have for regulatory oversight says “analysis of the problem and potential options has been significantly constrained by shortened time frames”. No one’s done any work on this bill because they only magicked it up a couple of nights ago over a late-night wine when Grant reached over and he probably said to Jacinda and Chippy, “Oh, the public’s getting a bit insatiable for tax relief. What are we going to do?”

Here we are: a band-aid Budget—a band-aid $350 for hard-working Kiwis. What is the purpose of a Labour Government if they can’t fight hard for working Kiwis? I tell you what, you go and listen to the comments on the news tonight, and the hard-working Kiwis aren’t impressed. They aren’t impressed about this band-aid response to, in fact, a very serious crisis in New Zealand.

This is a failed socialist experiment, this Government. Everything they do is failure—a failed socialist experiment. Now they’re reaching in and blowing $6 billion—the biggest spend—plus another $2 billion in the next Budget, another half a billion, and add on $800 million for this policy pledge. I tell you what, it’s the hard-working Kiwis that are going to have to pay it back on top of all the extra costs that they are paying for, and now they’ve got debt that’s growing by the day. The interest on the debt this Government is growing is twice what we pay for the New Zealand Police Force a year. This Government is out of control. But hold on, because there was one learned colleague from the Government benches who mentioned the poll, and he’s dead right, because the poll was reflective of where middle New Zealand is: middle New Zealand does not trust this Government.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise this evening in support of this bill and—sorry, I’m a little tiny bit taken back with the suddenness of my colleague across the row ending. Obviously, completely fascinating, but somewhat abrupt in its ending.

Matt Doocey: Point of order, Madam Speaker.

SARAH PALLETT: I’m sorry, are you starting again, Mr Doocey?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Point of order, Matt Doocey.

Matt Doocey: The Government MP was surprised my time had finished. I’d like to seek leave for further time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): No. That is not granted.

Hon Member: He sought leave!

SARAH PALLETT: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, I wasn’t surprised by his time ending; I was merely surprised by the abrupt way his sentence finished. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): You’re seriously seeking leave for more time?

Hon Member: He said that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I put that leave for more time for Matt Doocey. It is not granted.

SARAH PALLETT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Good try, Mr Doocey! Right now, the fundamentals of our economy are strong. Our strong health response has protected our economy through COVID-19, and we’ve done better than almost any other country because we put people first, because the best response to any crisis is to focus on the people. We know that the best health responses will result in the best economic responses. You can’t separate a solid economic response from a solid health response.

We are, though, in the middle of a global pandemic. Whilst we’ve done well, we can’t escape the fact that forces are in play that are affecting all of the economies of the OECD countries in the world—all of the countries of the world.

We heard today that in the UK, inflation has risen to 9 percent in the 12 months to April—9 percent: the highest level since 1982. I have to say, when I heard the news, an expletive that I won’t repeat in the House did escape my lips. It is predicted to rise again, unfortunately.

What did the chancellor have to say about this? The Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said, and I will remind the House that he is a Conservative MP, “There is no measure any Government could take, no law we could pass that could make these global forces disappear overnight.”

We in Government have been arguing this point, that there are some things that we cannot change, but we can respond to them. We can see examples like my friend in the UK, who has seen her fuel costs rise by thousands of dollars this year, causing them great economic hardship.

We understand that things are tough for many families here in New Zealand. That’s why we’ve introduced a comprehensive cost of living package, a package that will give a payment of $350 to all people earning $70,000 or less. That’s 2.1 million people, approximately, assessed on an individual basis, not a household basis. We are also extending our fuel tax cut, extending our road-user charges cut, extending our public transport fees rebate of 50 percent, and permanently halving public transport fees for those on the community services card.

So when you hear members of the Opposition talk about tax cuts, they mean tax cuts for the wealthy; they don’t mean relief for what they describe as the squeezed middle. They don’t mean that, and you know what? They won’t tell you what they will cut to give themselves a pay rise. Is it the new Hillmorton Hospital that the Opposition proposes to scrap? Is it the 80 new adult psychiatric beds in the new Hillmorton Hospital? Is it Whangarei Hospital? Is it Nelson Hospital? Is it money for the eating disorder services? Is it for the Pharmac money that we’ve increased? A 43 percent increase to Pharmac medicines budget since 2017 is what this Labour Government is going to be providing. Is that what they’re going to cut in the Opposition?

They’re busy telling us that $350 is nothing. They’re busy telling us this when they’re simultaneously telling us that $2 a week for the lowest earners—which is their tax cut proposal for the low-earning people of New Zealand—oh, we’re supposed to be grateful for that; that’s a lot of money?

Frankly, this is not true. We’re not going to spend $350 on a one-way ticket to Australia because people on low and middle incomes don’t spend $350 on a trip to Australia. They spend it on food, on fuel, on car registration, on looking after their families. Looking after their families is precisely what this Government is doing.

I call on—

Hon Member: Halbert.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Shanan Halbert.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and—[Interruption] Ha, ha! Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Simeon Brown: Wakey, wake!

SHANAN HALBERT: Wakey, wakey. And it is a “wakey, wakey” day under this Government as we launched a wonderful Budget—a Budget that makes a difference for every New Zealander in this country. I’ve heard the narrative this evening that it’s not enough, that it’s not enough—it’s not this; it’s not that. But in Northcote, I’ve done the numbers. It looks like up to 60 percent of Northcote constituents will be better off under this piece of legislation.

We know that our economy has been—is—one of the strongest in the world, with triple A credit ratings, record low unemployment, and lower debt than Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. However, despite these positive results, we know global inflation pressures are hurting some people, all across New Zealand, in our own communities. That’s why today counts.

I turn to some of the points that another member from the Opposition spoke of earlier, a colleague from the North Shore. We know that the North Shore is better under a Labour Government. National had a stronghold on the North Shore for over 15 years, and I heard one of the members last night talk about no infrastructure investment on the North Shore. Well, we know there definitely wasn’t any infrastructure investment under National, but we see it under Labour, we see it in houses, we see it in the North Shore Hospital, we see it in the Northern Busway extension—all the things that matter to changing people’s lives in Northcote, and that’s what counts.

One of the points tonight that the North Shore member raised was that this was only $27 per person in the average family—$27. Well, can I say: $2 under National—$2 versus $27. Well, I’ll count that up: $25 more per person. Well, that’s a lot. But what we haven’t seen in all of this discussion of the cost of living crisis that this particular bill addresses is that people are better off under this Government. We have put forward a balanced, a practical Budget that is going to change the lives for many people in what has been a challenging time. Challenging times will not last for ever, but they know, just like in COVID-19, this Government backs them—like things through the wage subsidy: they were supported to stay in their employment. Well, here we are: under the cost of living crisis that the Opposition wanted to call us out for, we are responding. We are responding with this piece of legislation, we’re responding with extra pūtea—extra money—in the hands of good people and families where it matters.

We’re responding in public transport. We’re extending half-price fares, and what a wonderful Minister that just walked into the House, who is taking action to change the lives to respond to the congestion challenges of Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, but, most importantly, to respond to the emissions that transport puts into our taiao, our environment.

What a wonderful piece of legislation that is before us tonight. It delivers for people. It takes action in a practical and very humble way. This is a responsible Budget. I’m proud of the work of the Hon Grant Robertson, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to, first, start with a little introduction for members of the public as to what happened to the Labour Party in the last three weeks. Now, they would have seen the polls and they would have known that they were in big trouble, and the squeezed middle cost of living argument was starting to take residence in the New Zealand public. Now, they would had to have rewritten their Budget in the last two weeks to actually try to achieve something to deal with that issue.

That’s what happened, and there’s only two members of the Government that would actually have known what happened. The rest of them are all backbenchers. They wouldn’t even know it. They would have only worked at caucus on Tuesday when the leader came in, or the Minister of Finance would have come in and told them, “I’ve got this great plan to give this money to all these people.” They had no idea—they had no idea. Mr Parker and Mr Woods here, they’re both sitting so silent and looking down because they knew—they knew. They were in Cabinet. They would have had the discussions. All these guys here, most of them aren’t coming back. They’re going. And they tried to save them, and that’s what happened. And the Labour Party members would have gone to caucus on Tuesday and they would have had this big presentation saying, “Look at what we’re going to do for the squeezed middle.” Don’t be so dumb. Understand what is happening. Your party has destroyed the New Zealand economy and today you have controlled that destruction even further. Don’t take it from those ones in the front. They’ll still be here. You won’t be, and that’s what you need to understand.

Now, that’s the Labour Party. That’s the dynamics of what has been going on in their party. But let’s actually look up what it is: a payment to every New Zealander that’s under $70,000 of income. Well, look at the Australians when there was a recession a few years ago for the global financial crisis (GFC). They gave $1,000 to everybody to spend. The Labour Party is not that generous, are they? They didn’t give a thousand bucks like the Labor Party did. Guess what happened in Australia when the Liberal Party gave that thousand dollars! Everyone just spent it on TVs. It didn’t actually help the Australian economy at all. And if anyone looks back at what the approaches were to the GFC, spending money by giving a payment to a community was seen as the least effective approach. The most effective approach is what the National Party did here, which was actually invest in infrastructure, invest in skills, and invest in the ability for New Zealand to grow its income going forward.

That’s what this Budget should have done. This Budget should have been a long-term Budget for New Zealand; it shouldn’t have been a short-term Budget to try and pay people off. That’s all it is, and it’s not going to save the Labour Party; in effect, it will do the opposite for the Labour Party: it will create more inflation in the next few months.

Order! Order! I’m going to ask the member to come back to the bill.

Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well, the major part of the bill and the Government’s promise for this Budget is a payment to individuals, and that payment will actually create inflation. There’s no other way to look at it. It’s just going to be spent in consumer spending; it’s not actually for the infrastructure of New Zealand to grow a stronger economy. That’s where Labour’s missed the trick. If they actually wanted to use that money effectively, they should have used it so that we could grow our way and pay our way so we can have the services we want. The services in health and education aren’t going to come from giving everyone a slight payment. That’s not going to do it. The way that the services come is if you increase the tax take by New Zealand having a bigger economy. That’s how you get more services in the country. The Labour Party doesn’t understand the fundamentals of economics.

But there is another thing that those two senior Ministers that are here will actually have known about that the backbench don’t know about yet, and that’s that New Zealand’s probably going to be in recession in a few months’ time. Look at all the other major economies in the world going through a high inflationary environment. All the projections are of recession. And guess why those two senior Ministers didn’t give you that money today! They didn’t give us that money in April near an election; they gave that money in August, leading on, because they knew that was when the recession was about to start. I bet you they’ve got that advice from Treasury and from the Reserve Bank that there is the potential of a recession in New Zealand and they are trying to stave off that recession, because you cannot win an election going into a recession and the Labour Party will do all it can to try and win the election, even if it means misusing New Zealanders’ money. And that’s what they did today. They misused the investments that New Zealanders give to this House. People don’t pay this tax to this House for fun; they work damn hard out there to make the money so this House can make the best decisions for all Kiwis. That’s why we have a Parliament. That’s how the economy works. It is not to be used by a political party for posturing and trying to win votes. In effect, they are actually going to lose votes because all they’re doing is creating more inflation, fastening that chance of a recession coming, and, therefore, ordinary Kiwis will be losing a lot more than the money that they are going to get out of this.

We’ve heard talk today about what you could actually buy for that kind of money, and it’s little or nothing. Most people know how expensive it is now to get their groceries each week. Most people know how expensive fuel is. We can’t blame overseas all the time. Look at the structural imbalance in the New Zealand economy. What could have been a better way to spend that money? You know, we had Jamie Strange stand up before, from Hamilton. Well, the Labour Party cancelled the road from Cambridge to Piarere. That was $600 million. They actually cancelled—they didn’t go ahead with Southern Links, which would actually be very important for Hamilton, which would be about the same kind of $600 million. There’s two projects there that would have actually been better investments for New Zealand than giving everybody 350 bucks to go buy a TV that’s imported from China—because that’s what’s going to happen. I bet you there’ll be sales at The Warehouse for TVs just at the right price. Every student bar will be setting up nice little packages for students to take advantage of. There’ll be all these little consumer treats that are out there, which the business community will take advantage of the Labour money. The Labour Party have fallen into another trap, and the reason they are in that position is because, first of all, they don’t understand how to make money; they don’t understand how to run an economy.

Secondly, they think you can buy votes. They think the public is stupid. They think they can actually be smarter than the public. That’s the urban academic elite that is the Labour Party.

Thirdly, they actually were under pressure. They had no understanding of what to do. They were panicking. But the learned members of the Labour Party’s senior bench were panicking in the last couple of weeks. And the result of that panic—they would have gone to their officials, “What can we do? What can we do? What are the options? What can we do in two weeks that we don’t have to do any work on?” And the option would have been: “Well, you can give everyone some money.” That’s it. The Labour Party ticked it off and their poor little backbench sitting there now, stunned as mullets, looking at each other, going, “What’s happened to us? We shouldn’t have listened to these two in the front row. We should have actually stood up for our people.” Well, there’s a chance, to the backbench of the Labour Party. There’s a year to go to the election. Stand up for the people in New Zealand; don’t be led by your front bench that are only interested in their own salaries and positions. Actually make sure, if you get to spend New Zealanders’ money, you spend it on things that are good for New Zealand and don’t make all these rash promises.

In the economic development area, we’ve had Stuart Nash come up with a beautiful promise of $100 million for a banking finance system for small business. It won’t even get off the ground. It’s got no chance. That guy could not sort that out in the next year. They have got no idea. They had this thing for regional and strategic investments that it was to take over from the Provincial Growth Fund. They gave $58 million for it last Budget. They’ve only spent $6 million of that $58 million in the whole year.

The member’s time has expired.

Well, I stand up for the people of New Zealand, this afternoon, this evening. And, as a Bennett, I think from a village far, far away from the previous Bennett—David Bennett—I am proud to stand here and support this piece of legislation this evening. We’ve had things thrown at us all afternoon, evening, and our previous speaker just talked about us to not be so dumb, that we’re destroying the New Zealand economy—he’s put his headphones in, so, obviously, he doesn’t want to hear this—that we’d fall into the trap. But I just want to say tonight, thank you—thank you to the Hon Grant Robertson for his contribution to not only New Zealand society but to this Budget today.

When I look at this Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill, I see our finance Minister responding to need. I see our finance Minister responding to what is going on within Aotearoa New Zealand. This isn’t about polls. One member across the floor said this was made up a couple of days ago. Another member said it was made up six weeks ago. The previous member said it was a couple of weeks ago. This was about responding to need.

I also want to say that another thing that’s been thrown around is about it being rapacious. Now, as a commoner myself, as a working-class member of our community, I had to look this word up, because I didn’t actually quite understand. And they keep throwing this “rapacious”, “rapacious”, “rapacious”. But then it’s about being greedy, about wanting more money or possessions or wanting more. But our Cabinet Minister, our Minister of Finance, is definitely not that kind of person. I think of him as smart, as driven, as compassionate, and having hard-headed compassion to ensure that, at this time when we’re dealing with our challenges, he is responding to need within our community. Now, this is a targeted payment. We’ve heard others talk about this as the 2.1 million or so people. That’s almost twice the population of the South Island that are going to benefit from this payment.

Now, we’ve heard from the Opposition that this is the cost of a flight to Sydney. Someone said earlier that this is a cheap trip to the pub or won’t pay for your Uber Eats for a week. Well, we get abused and told that we’re out of touch with New Zealand society; well, I think it’s the Opposition that’s out of touch, when they’re talking about things like flights to Australia or buying Uber Eats or going to the pub, because the community that I live in, they wouldn’t be looking at flights to Australia right now; they’d be looking at what that’s actually going to help them with, whether it’s helping with a new washing machine, whether it’s going to help them in terms of a trailer load of firewood, whether it’s going to help them with servicing their car or getting a couple of new tyres for their vehicle. This payment is going to serve the people in my community, and I’m grateful for it.

And let’s just be clear, $350—but think about a family. Two for my car—it would be two new tyres for my car. So thinking about a family, a couple of parents, $700—$700 that goes into the coffers for a family. So when we say we’re out of touch, I believe it’s the other side, when they’re talking about they’re quickly googling what a flight to Sydney is. Well, my people are googling things that are actually going to help their whānau and their communities. I’m proud to be part of this party and proud of this Government that is here to support New Zealanders at this challenging time.

In closing, I just want to mention the Hon Paul Goldsmith, who, again, talks about—you know, he was going on and was complaining, and then he talked about other things, a couple of cheap bus fares and this type of thing; it’s not much at all. But, again, announced today in the Budget was around the community services card, that is there and is going to be half-price bus fares for ever and ever, and I’m grateful for that—that we’re actually addressing, we’re responding, and we’re ensuring that New Zealanders can move forward. It’s not easy, but we’re willing to take a stand. And the Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill is one that I support.

This bill is set down for committee stage forthwith. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Taxation (Cost of Living Payments) Bill.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Tax Administration Act 1994