Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill

I move, That the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill be now read a second time. I have listened with interest during the first part of what passes for a debate. It is a pretty one-sided debate, because this is how it has run so far. Mrs Katherine Rich, having worked her way through the argument about whether she was paid parental leave—whether it was via the paid parental leave provisions or by using her salary—then went on to advance what I think was one argument, which was that we ought to have made tax cuts. If she has a look at what that means, she will see that most of the people who will gain from this package—say, a family on $30,000—simply would not have got anything. In fact, they would have been in a negative position by an across-the-board tax cut. So I hope the National Opposition carries on advancing that argument throughout the rest of this debate.

National members have so far told us that they are not voting for in-work payments, families, childcare, and all the things in this package, but they have not told us that they will repeal the legislation. I do invite the next National Party speaker to put on the record, should by some mistake—because I cannot think of any other way it would happen—National become the Government, led no doubt by Peter Brown and New Zealand First I am sure, whether it would repeal the legislation. Let us go to the election knowing very clearly that the National Party position is not only to vote against kids, work, and all the things in this legislation but it would actively stop people getting the money that is in there. Let us hear from the National Party on that. It is the courageous position to take. It is the one Gerry Brownlee would take if he were leader, because there is no subtlety about Gerry Brownlee. He would be up on his feet thumping, and telling us that repeal was the option. I am sure that if he speaks next, he will tell us that.

I was moved by Peter Brown’s speech today. It had sheer clarity, as he led us through the five basic principles that drive the legislation the National Party opposes: making work pay and moving parents off benefits, increasing family incomes, increasing accommodation affordability, increasing childcare assistance, and simplifying the system. As he nobly led us through that, and as the National Party sat next door saying it did not support any of those things, I was moved by his speech, which was later reinforced by Barbara Stewart’s speech that said the same thing and that also made the very telling point—[Interruption] We are worried about poverty on this side of the House, whether or not National is worried. John Key, for example, would not know poverty if he drove past it in the Mercedes. He does not realise, but Barbara Stewart does, that this legislation will reduce poverty by 70 percent—and it will. She said that was why she was voting for it. Simon Power does not want to vote for something that will reduce poverty amongst children in New Zealand, but Barbara Stewart does. Lindsay Tisch does not want to support anything that overcomes poverty, but Barbara Stewart does.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just ask you to consider whether the content of the Minister’s speech is appropriate for this debate. There have been numerous personal reflections, which I do not think do him a lot of credit, and it would be unfortunate if the standard of debate in the rest of the evening were to be lowered to a constant toing and froing of what are simply personal reflections as opposed to the merits or otherwise of the bill. We do understand the Government’s embarrassment over this bill, but surely its members could mount some defence of it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Again, I thank the honourable member for his contribution. The use of personal reflections, under Standing Order 116, is a matter I have taken into consideration during the course of the speech. Disparaging remarks occur quite frequently in this Parliament, but it is the personal reflection that is out of order. No objection was made by Mr Key, and therefore the robustness of this debate gave me the indication he did not object.

I always welcome what Sue Bradford has to say. She is a person who has done the hard yards, and she tells us the Greens want to support this bill because they too want to do something about poverty, childcare, and so on. Richard Prebble, not surprisingly, gave the most lucid opposition to this bill—unlike the National Party, which still does not seem to be able to do what the ACT party can do, and actually make its mind up on the issue. The ACT party would vote against it, would repeal it, and does not want to pass it. Basically, that party wants to give massive tax cuts. That is a clear position tonight. United Future will vote for it. Its members said they would vote for it.

John Key, the pretender to the throne, raised a whole series of points on that side of the Chamber. For example, he asked us why Treasury reports show benefit forecasts still going up. I tell the member that Treasury always has those forecasts going up, and the Government always comes in underneath them. We will carry on doing exactly that into the future.

The last speaker was Lockwood Smith, whose only major contribution that I could see was to tell us that he used to sing a song called Oh What a Circus, which I suppose was from one of the pantomimes he was in when he was young, and as a music lover I greatly appreciate being reminded of that song by him—but I cannot remember anything else he said.

The interesting thing about all of this is what National members—who are basically the only people with a wavering, quivering position on this bill, suitable to the party, and who honestly do not quite know what to do with it—are voting against. They are voting against housing becoming more affordable in October this year, because the accommodation supplement abatement thresholds will change. They are voting against that, first of all. I want to ask whether the National Party does not want to improve the abatement thresholds, so that people attain more money when they go to work. Does it not do that? Well, we will see. On 4 October this year the subsidy for out-of-school childcare rates will increase. People will get more money for that, and will not have to pay so much. So on 4 October the National Party will not want that.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Another crap—

Well, Mr Prebble at least says: “No, I don’t.” all the time, whereas National members all sit there like stunned mullets, saying they really do not know what to do with this bill. It sounds pretty good stuff to them, but they are trying to sit there and pretend they want to vote against it.

In December this year the invalid benefits will change so that more invalids can go to work for over 15 hours, stay in employment, try out whether it works, and gradually work into a job. [Interruption] I ask Mr Brownlee whether he is against that—against the notion that invalid beneficiaries can get into work. National complains all the time about the numbers going up, but it never has a policy about how to reduce them. We have a policy about how to reduce the numbers.

Does Simon Power want to vote for more invalid beneficiaries to go to work, or is he content to be part of the process of sitting back and just seeing those numbers carry on rising? I ask that member what he reckons. Do we want to say to the Manawatu Evening Standard that Simon Power does not want to see invalid beneficiaries get a chance to go to work and retain more income? He does not want to vote for that. Well, I suggest he try this: on 1 April next year family support benefits, unsupported child benefits, and orphans benefits will all be extended to 260,000 New Zealand families. Now, I ask Mr Brownlee whether we will hear him in the Christchurch Press saying: “I don’t want anyone getting more family support. That is awful. They’re going to be reliant on the State. They’re going to have money coming into their households. I don’t want it.” I am expecting to see that headline in the Christchurch Press next year.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It may have escaped the Minister’s notice, but the bill actually provides for the repeal of family support later, in the—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order. The member is very experienced and he should know better.

Will Mr Brownlee also have a headline in the Christchurch Press that says: “Grandparents raising grandchildren are not going to get another $15 a week because of the changes in this bill on 1 April next year.”? Is Maurice Williamson intending that the people of Pakuranga will hear from him: “I don’t want to see anybody get that money.”?

Let us move on to the accommodation supplement areas. We have increased the amount of the accommodation supplement in places like Nelson, for example. So will Nick Smith now, having insisted time after time to me that the cure for the housing problems of Nelson would be an increase in the accommodation supplement, courageously say in the Nelson newspaper that he no longer wants it? He has argued and pleaded for the Nelson people to have a higher rate of accommodation supplement, and the Government is giving it to them, but Nick Smith—and he can take the next call and tell us what he thinks—will be in the paper saying: “No thanks, I don’t want that. I didn’t mean that at all. I’m going to vote against an increase in the accommodation supplement for Nelson. I don’t want it.” This is Pythonesque. We will get to the point where, like John Cleese, he is saying: “What has the Labour Government ever done for us in Nelson? It has put the accommodation supplement up, it has put the family support up, it has changed things for 260,000 people, but we do not want it. Do not give it to us. We will campaign every time the Labour Government tries to give more money to people.”

John Key will drive his Mercedes down to the newspaper offices and ask to be put in the newspaper requesting that on 3 October next year childcare and out-of-school care subsidies are not increased, and that he does not want 28,000 more families getting more money.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: When?

Mr Brownlee is so anxious that I want him to start voting against these measure from 1 October this year. I want to see all those courageous people on the other side of this Chamber, who are voting against the legislation, out there saying “No thanks”.

What a very sad time it is for the New Zealand Parliament! I can remember a time about 14 years ago when the “mother of all Budgets” was read in this very Chamber. The front row of the Government defending that Budget consisted of the Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, the Deputy Prime Minister, Don McKinnon, and the Minister of Social Welfare, Jenny Shipley. The entire Cabinet sat on the benches; those members were there to defend a Budget that had to be done because the Labour Government that had gone out of office the year before had wrecked the economy, and had left no option. What do we see in the front row tonight? We have Steve Maharey, we have, I hate to say, Matt Robson—I am sorry about that—and I can see Marian Hobbs as well. That is all that is left here defending the absolutely indefensible.

Two or three questions need to be asked. By the way, let us clarify the National Party position, because members want it clarified: we are voting against this legislation. We do not say that we will repeal it; what we say is that we will replace it. We do believe that there needs to be assistance to some people within the community, but what this bill is doing—members talk about Monty Python; this Budget should be called the “Python Budget”—is taking huge sums of money, billions of dollars, from ordinary, working New Zealanders to make a surplus, and Michael Cullen somehow gloats that he is a great Minister because he has taken so much money off ordinary New Zealanders. I do not think that is anything to gloat about, or even to start to gloat about. Then he says that in a couple of years’ time—after the next election, that is—he will give some, actually quite a small sum, of it back to a certain group of people who could be classified as predominantly, but not solely, Labour Party voters. That is why the poll tonight on Holmes showed that for every one person that loves it, four hate it. That is 20 percent in favour, which is about where the Labour Party is polling at present as far as I can remember. Twenty percent love it and 80 percent hate it.

I got really scared yesterday when I saw the panic that set in when Labour realised that the last Colmar Brunton poll on Sunday night showed it was dropping even further in public opinion and falling behind. We had this enormous announcement that anyone who wants a hip replacement or knee surgery can have it. I hoped that Labour would not drop any further in the polls, or it would become compulsory to get a hip replacement and have one’s knees done. It was the most desperate move of a Government that is in trouble.

And what is this measure? This is the exact same move. This is not an attempt to relieve the burden on ordinary, middle-class New Zealanders. No, this is saying, “Why don’t we tax the hell out of all New Zealanders as hard as we can, then put some crumbs back on the table of one in five families?”. For that reason alone the National Party, I am proud to say, will both vote against this bill and, when the new National Government is elected next year—and from the way it is going, if Labour keeps falling like it is, it will be a majority, sole National Government, which will not even need to look at coalitions, because that is how bad that lot is—replace it with a properly targeted package of assistance for those hard-working, middle-income families who have been beaten around.

So what do the Labour Party members do tonight? They try to personalise this by referring to some of us. I admit that every one of us in Parliament is at the high end of income earners, but that is not what we are talking about here tonight. No one is talking about giving tax breaks to people earning over $100,000, which includes every one of us in this House. [Interruption] Exactly. There are a couple of questions that I still have not heard an answer to.

💬 Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The outrage from the other side of the House is completely unacceptable. It comes from a certain sector that tonight has been very vocal. I ask that you direct that member in particular, the senior Labour whip, to tone down her comments.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think there has been a fair bit of cross-interjection. I think it does need to be toned down a bit so that the speaker can be heard.

I am very, very comfortable with Labour’s opposition tonight, because I have never seen such a limp-wristed, hopeless, pathetic attempt to justify something. On the night of the Budget, those benches should be packed and those members should be crowing about what they have done.

But there are a couple of things I want some answers to, and I think this is really important. I think New Zealanders will see this Budget for what it is by this one issue alone: every time I have been in this Parliament under urgency on a Budget night, it was to pass legislation that affected people as of midnight that night. That is why we go into urgency. The clock stops, we stay on today’s date, and we do that because we are making changes to the tax system—we are making changes to petrol tax, we are making changes to benefit schemes—as of midnight. My question is, and I have heard it asked many times so far, whether this bill changes anything as of midnight tonight.

💬 Opposition Members: No!

All right, that is clear. The answer is no. So do the changes happen tomorrow? No. In the weekend? No. In a week’s time? No. It does not have any impact until October. This bill could have been done in the normal time frame that every other bill is done in. So why would the Government call urgency? Because it thought that it had this neat momentum, that it was on a roll with the Budget.

💬 John Carter: What did the Holmes show say?

Mr Carter should not feed me these lines; it is too good to miss. What I loved tonight is that this poll was from the television channel that is charter-funded. We are talking about the “bean-sprouts and batik brigade” channel, the “sandal-wearers and kaftan-wearers” channel—Television One. Hardly a Tory would watch Television One, the State channel. And what did the poll show? I have heard this Labour Government often refer to Holmes polls, saying, for instance: “We saw on the Holmes poll last night that the Government is moving in the right direction.” In the first 3 years, to give those members some credit, it was pretty hard to lay a glove on them. But tonight, when that Holmes poll showed that only one in every five New Zealanders—

💬 John Carter: No!

That is right—one in every five. Guess what? It is an incredible coincidence. Members should guess what the coincidence is, and see whether they can spot it. This Budget favours one in every five families, and the vote tonight in New Zealand was that one in every five supports it. I tell this Government that at the next election it will get one in every five votes. In fact, I think it will be lucky to get that, because a few will bail out on the way. But to be fair—[Interruption] That is right—one in every five votes. That is what the Government will get, because this is a cynical move and it is seen by the public as a cynical move.

Let us get this very clear: this is not giving people anything. What it is doing is letting them have back a small amount of what was taken from them in the first place. Anyone can be a Robin Hood. Anyone can rip money off people, then say: “Guess what, I’m going to be kind. I’ll give you back a bit.” We accept there needs to be a targeted assistance programme, we accept the focus needs to be on getting people back into work, but we think this is the biggest miscue that has ever been made—and so does that Government, because if it thought it was right, we would see that front bench riddled with all its senior Ministers. They would all be taking the call and defending it, but they cannot defend the indefensible.

My last question to those members is this: if this is such a great scheme, how come 5 years have gone by—5 whole years—and they ask whether the National Party would repeal it? It is just a disgrace.

After that lamentable effort from that senior member on the furthest back Opposition back bench, I say bring back Bill English. One can now see that he had great judgment. He had the judgment to send that member to the furthest back seat of the back bench that he could imagine. Members can see why—10 minutes of wasted time in this House, and not once did he dare to address the bill. I guess that is because the Government used words with more than four letters in it, so he cannot understand what it says.

This is a bill New Zealand will welcome, and the National Party will regret because those members could never have thought of it. That is because it is good news for every honest, hard-working family in New Zealand, and that party would not even know what that was. Regarding that last effort, for that speaker to have spoken it with a straight face he would need to be a contortionist. This is a bill that brings the family centre stage. [Interruption] I have just had a jury verdict that says: “Eleven for, one against (National). We’ll have another ham sandwich, thank you.” This bill brings the family centre stage in the New Zealand economy and social setting. That is a new idea for National, is it not? Fancy those members putting families at centre stage, instead of the tax break for the wealthy! This bill should be named the “Working for Families Bill”. Well, what is it named? It is named the ”Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill”. How ironic that a bill that does so much for so many people, and that makes this country get on to its feet again, is named the “Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill”. No wonder the last speaker did not bother to read it. No wonder we have allowed him until October to read and understand it. On 1 October that member will come grovelling to these benches, and he will be the last speaker, saying: “Oh, I wish I’d read that bill before I wasted 10 minutes of this country’s time.”

I want to talk about a great electorate that has working families—unlike the electorate of the last speaker, whose constituents sip lattes and send out overdue-mortgage notices. Napier is an electorate of working families. This is a good bill for the Napier electorate, because it is an electorate of working families. The suburbs of Bay View, Ahuriri, Mārewa, Onekawa, Maraenui, Greenmeadows, and Taradale are family suburbs. [Interruption] I say to Mr Brownlee that a family is that special thing we have in New Zealand that has a mum and a dad and kids. Mum and dad love each other, they love their kids, and the kids return it. That member may not know much about that, but he should listen to this debate, and he will have his eyes opened—and keep other things zipped up. There are suburbs with the real stars, and with their share of families on benefits—Mārewa, Bay View, Onekawa, Maraenui, Greenmeadows, and Taradale—and moving those families from the benefit to the workforce is one of the best things we can do for the suburbs of Napier. Before today, and before 1 October, it has been a hurdle to get off a benefit, no matter how much it was screwed down by the previous Government, because moving from the benefit to a wage often meant a drop in income—but no longer, because henceforth one is encouraged to work. One is encouraged to get off the benefit and get into a job.

And we can offer jobs. For the next 4 years or so, experts greater than the members opposite could even imagine predict that the unemployment rate will be below 5 percent, which means our families will have income earners. The intent is to get them off the benefit, which is not understood by the intellects on the other side of the House. We will move to an economy that is sound. So this bill is good news for New Zealand, good news for the suburbs of Napier, and good news for Napier.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Get out of making excuses for criminal behaviour.

Speaking about criminal behaviour, I think the previous speaker would know about that. Anyone who has studied it, both close up and far distant, would know that most criminal offending comes from those who are in poverty. That is well documented. Those people know there is a correlation between families under financial stress and family dysfunction. That is well known to those who bother to meet with families. The correlation between child health and poverty has been glaringly obvious to all but those who talk about tax cuts for the rich. We cannot ignore that correlation.

This bill increases family income. We recognise that family income inadequacy has a significant impact on the welfare of our society. This bill addresses that issue by lifting the levels of family income, so that families can move forward. Families in Napier who are endeavouring to survive can now lift their heads. The electorate that I represent will march forward from tomorrow morning. The workers in its suburbs can go off to their workplaces knowing that this bill places the family in the centre of our consideration. This is a bill for children. It is a bill that lifts the place of children, so that they can have families who care and love for them.

So I recommend this bill to the House. I endorse this bill, and I wait to hear one single argument from the members opposite as to why this bill is wrong—an argument from ex-bankers, ex-lawyers, ex-accountants, ex - money-sellers. I want to hear what they have to say about it. This is a bill that is working for New Zealand and working for families.

This bill addresses some serious issues. Right now, as we speak, there are some New Zealanders and New Zealand families suffering, and they need some financial help. New Zealand First is prepared to support that and help them.

But we have found two errors in the bill already. The first is in clause 2, “Commencement”. It is obviously a mistake for it to state that the bill will be brought in in 2005, so we will put an amendment, in my name, to delete this clause. [Interruption] No, I am warning that we are going to put one in. I hope the National Party will support it, because it is a quite serious issue. If the Government is bringing in, under urgency, a bill like this to give financial assistance to families, then, clearly, it would want it to happen immediately. It has made a dreadful mistake.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Having a bit of a change, are you?

No, we are simply making a change.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: He listened to my speech where I pointed out the mistakes, and he’s changing things.

I am saying now that we will move an amendment, and if the member is at all sincere, then he will support it. We propose to omit clause 2 and substitute: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” It is as simple as that. In other words, if members are to sit here until 10 o’clock tonight and all day tomorrow in urgency, we might as well do it for some immediate effect—not for something for the year 2005. I think the National Party has suddenly realised there is some merit, when we are in urgency, in doing something positive.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: We just might think about this one.

I invite the member to think about it. It is all very well our rowing about this thing, but there are people out there suffering now. [Interruption] Oh, I am coming to the doormats. Is the member talking about these doormats, or those doormats? There are so many doormats around that I am not sure which one the member means. We are coming to the doormats, because—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: What’s the difference between a doormat and a laptop?

That is too technical for me. I am just a simple sailor. We will move an amendment, and I hope members will support it. Clearly, the Government will, because if it wants to help people, it will want that help to take immediate effect. I am hoping United Future will, but one never can tell. We will move another amendment, too, because I was told that Larry Baldock, on behalf of United Future, went on Radio Rhema yesterday, the Christian radio station—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: And the Prime Minister?

No, he was with our young guy, Craig McNair. I told Craig McNair not to be too vicious—to take it easy. Larry Baldock said there was much merit in the definition of “family” in Craig McNair’s Commission for the Family Bill and that, had we previously put it up in the House, his party would have supported it. Craig McNair pointed out that we had done that. So we will add the definition of “family” from that bill: “A family is defined as a family group, including an extended family (a) in which there is at least one adult member; and (b) in which the members have a biological or legal relationship.” [Interruption] The title is the “Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill”. We think it only appropriate that a proper definition of the family should be in the bill. Unless members want to accept the liberal definition currently in the Families Commission Act, which I cannot readily find—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Just make it up!

I should just make it up. The definition in that Act is very liberal. I have given the United Future members the opportunity to put their money where their mouth was yesterday on Radio Rhema. Surely Larry Baldock would not tell Radio Rhema one thing, and then, when there is an amendment to have an appropriate definition of “family” in this bill, vote against it.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Of course he would!

He would not. He is a man of honour. We are all honourable people here. We do not go on Radio Rhema and tell porkies, do we? Never! I know that the National Party will give me hell because I am bailing the Government out. I am giving it the chance to get this bill right and have it come in on the right date, which is after it receives the royal assent. I know that the Government will take that seriously, and I know that Larry Baldock would not dare say one thing on Radio Rhema then vote against it in the House. That would be a mortal sin, would it not? I would have thought it would be terrible.

💬 Simon Power: Who is Craig McNair?

He is the youngest, most enterprising MP in this Parliament. He is one of the most sincere people members will ever be privileged to meet, but Mr Power does not keep that sort of company, does he? I do; it rubs off on me. I meet all these sincere people, and there is none more sincere than Craig McNair. Whilst we are talking about him, I was proud to sit in this seat when he took on the whole House the other day on the Commission for the Family Bill. I have never felt prouder. I have felt pretty proud listening to Winston Peters, but when that young guy spoke and took on the House on his own, I felt really proud to be part of his team. That is who Craig McNair is. I tell members that he is very much up-and-coming. That is enough about Craig McNair; I will get back to the bill.

We want this bill to come into immediate effect. We support it, but we want it to come in immediately, and we will be moving amendments in the Committee stage accordingly. We know there are people out there who are hurting. We know that this bill will be of some assistance to them. The aims in this bill are worthwhile. As I say, we looked through it and found two errors, and no doubt we will find a few more. [Interruption] The second one was the definition of the family. Even Mr Williamson would agree that the definition in the Families Commission Act is not adequate. We are talking about the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: The Mafia would qualify, wouldn’t it?

It just misses including a gang as a family, but two prostitutes living with their pimp would be a family under the definition in the Families Commission Act. We cannot have that in this bill, so we will put up an amendment to reflect that.

I finish by saying there are some good aims in the bill. It deals with payment of funeral grants where there is a surviving spouse or children, children’s funeral grants, accommodation supplements, disability allowances, and all the social security payments in schedule 2. Well, they should come in immediately. I think Mr Maharey is nodding there. We will bail the Government out and give it a chance to get it right. We told it earlier on: “Do it once and do it right.”, and this is its opportunity. We will be studying this bill as it goes through the Committee stage, and amending other sections as we find fault. I hope we do not find too many, but there are two, for a start. My throat is getting sore, so I will conclude by saying that we support this bill and we will be moving two amendments, at least, when we get to the Committee stage. Hopefully, there will not be too many more, but we will be advising members accordingly. We look forward to the unanimous support of all parties. Members should have a little bit of compassion. If the bill is to pass, let us get it right. Let us get the date right; let it apply urgently—when it gets royal assent.

I would like to take a relatively brief call on the second reading of the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill to raise a few issues in particular before we go into the Committee stage. My first concern is related to the proposal that appears to replace the special benefit with a new measure called temporary additional support. It looks as though the current discretionary regime will be replaced by a rules-based system operating through regulation. That takes some of us who have been around for a while back to the ill-fated attempt by National to do the same thing with its social welfare reform legislation in the mid-1990s. That bill met with massive opposition from beneficiary advocacy groups and community social services organisations generally, and eventually even the Nats backed down on it.

It is very difficult to regulate for the totality of human existence, and, if a regulatory regime is introduced, there will always be people who fall through the cracks. Because the special benefit is a benefit of last resort, that leaves no assistance available for those whose circumstances just happen to fall outside those that are contemplated by the officials who are drafting the regulations. No matter how well intentioned this Government might be—and overall I believe it is, with this bill—I still think it is dangerous to do away with the discretion around the special benefit. Beneficiary advocates have lobbied hard over the last few years, as I am sure the Minister is all too well aware, to persuade the Ministry of Social Development to hang on to discretion and to train its staff to exercise it properly. It is a great pity that it appears we are to lose that, unless other things happen first, like the lifting of benefits to levels that mean there will be much less need for third-tier assistance.

In a similar vein, it is also of concern that the temporary additional support being proposed, presumably by regulation also, will be capped at 30 percent of the main benefit. That takes no account of the fact that the exigencies of human existence are infinite, and that at times people can find themselves in extraordinarily difficult circumstances through no fault of their own. While I accept totally that the State cannot and should not ever be expected to automatically be capable of picking up all the pieces of people’s lives, I believe that, ideally, Work and Income staff should retain the ability to make fair judgment calls based on the realities of the situation, rather than being completely constrained by regulation.

However, taking a longer-term perspective, the Green Party would in the end prefer to see the need for third-tier benefits done away with altogether; but that is dependent on the total reform of the welfare system, a bullet Labour is not yet prepared to bite, as the Budget and this bill make very clear. We look forward to the day when the Social Security Act of 1964 will be thrown out completely by a Government that is willing to start over with an income support framework based on principles of sufficiency, simplicity, and universality. Meanwhile, it is no good getting rid of third-tier assistance while benefits are still too low for people to live on, and it is no good working towards universality if what that means is basic levels are reduced to the lowest common denominator; for example, limiting everyone to the rate of the unemployment benefit. I am grateful that the Labour Government has not headed down that particular path with this bill, and that Labour is evidently committed to making sure no one will lose as the different stages of the legislation are gradually implemented.

The second area I will quickly touch on is the question of how the package does and does not affect beneficiaries who do not have dependent children. Apart from increases in the accommodation supplement, which will apply in a highly variable fashion, according to circumstance, beneficiaries in this category face an uncertain future, especially with the eventual loss of the special benefit, as well. For example, the Wellington People’s Resource Centre believes that a single person with severe disability and low-housing costs could well end up worse off as a result of those initiatives. I would be interested in the Government’s response to that, given its assurance that no one will lose out as a result of the changes announced today.

My fear is for single beneficiaries with high needs, but low living costs, which is a situation for many people in this and other cities. At the same time I also recognise that the benefit system, with all of its layers, and its some 35 different forms of assistance, continues to be used really as a way to subsidise the inadequacies of a health system that often does not treat people well or in time, whether they have physical or mental health problems. The Green Party applauds the Budget gift of more money for joint operations, but this does not solve the much deeper crisis embodied by the fate of tens of thousands of people on a sickness benefit or invalids benefit who are simply not well enough to work, but would love to do so if they could regain their health sufficiently to be able to take on employment.

Finally, I reiterate some frustration on the part of the Green Party—and I have heard this shared by other members in the House tonight—that substantial increases in support for families will take so long to roll out. The people this bill is aimed at helping—low to medium income families—need support now, not later. It would have been great if Dr Cullen could have seen his way clear to using some of his windfall to put a little more than $170 million into this package for the 2004-05 year. I know that a billion dollars, or even $500 million, for this year would have looked uncomfortably like a serious election bribe, but, in fact, that is what the 30 percent of the country’s children who live in poverty need now and not later, if it is to be done at all. This legislation and the family directions package are to be welcomed for the enormous step they make towards restoring a greater degree of equity in our society. I am just sorry that we could not have done it a little more quickly and with less discrimination against beneficiaries and their families.

I have seen something today that I have never seen before, either in this House or outside it. I saw two grey-haired gentlemen stand up for the Government. I saw two sugar daddies. We all know what a sugar daddy is. He is somebody who accumulates wealth in order to receive favours when he dishes it out a little later. Both Dr Cullen and Steve Maharey epitomise the sugar daddies of this Government. Often members of the ACT party are criticised as people who advocate for the rich and who do not understand what it is like to be poor. I am delighted to be an advocate for the rich. I have been a beneficiary. I have been to the public trough and dined there for years. Then my colleague Mr Prebble took away my supplementary minimum prices and I was no longer a beneficiary. I had to learn to stand on my feet, and do members know what happened? The farming and rural industry has thrived to the extent that this Government has not even mentioned it either in this bill or the Budget. That is what happens when people are taken out of dependency.

Members of this Government probably will not understand that, but there are some really frightening statistics that I want to touch on this evening. In 1970, 27 working people supported one person on some form of Government support. That was a ratio of 27:1 in 1970. Thirty years later the ratio has gone down to four working people supporting one person who is on some form of Government support. My question this evening is: where will we be in a couple of years? Where will the ratio be? Will this Government be happy when the ratio is 1:1?

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Look over there.

I ask Government members to face me and answer my question. Will they be happy when the ratio is one productive person—one working person—to one beneficiary? That is the direction in which that package and this Budget are taking us.

One thing I want to say about the Minister of Finance this evening is that he is a man of his word. I shall read to members this evening the words of the Minister of Finance in his maiden speech: “I am proud of the fact that my secondary education was not paid for by the taxpayers of New Zealand, but by the farmers of Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay. I ripped them off for 5 years then, and I shall get stuck into them again in the next few years.” I have to say that the honourable member has kept his word. He is getting stuck into the lucky ones who have some form of discretionary income.

I have heard members of the Government, United Future, and the Greens say that they do not mind paying tax. They think it is appropriate that those on a reasonable income—a back-bencher’s or Cabinet Minister’s income—should pay tax and more tax. I invite members of the Greens, United Future, and the Government to open their wallets, or to take their chequebooks out of their pockets or wherever, and write a cheque for the consolidated account right now. If they enjoy paying tax and want to pay more, nobody on this side of the House will stop them. I shall pause for a moment and look around the Government, the Greens, and United Future to see how many of those members are prepared to write out a cheque. I do not see any. Lianne Dalziel is writing out a cheque. How the mighty have fallen. It will bounce. I want a cheque that will work. That is one of the great problems we face in this country.

The Government purports to understand the less well off and the poor in this country.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: In an academic sense.

That is exactly right. Mr Prebble has stolen my thunder. The Prime Minister and Dr Cullen have studied poor people. They went to university and studied the less well off. They have read books about the poor and those who are on some form of Government assistance. That is the extent of the Government’s understanding of those at the bottom, or near to the bottom, of the socio-economic scale. What is so frustrating for the public of this country—and it is frustrating—is that this Government wants to patronise them forever. They do not want patronage from this Government. They want opportunity.

Essentially, this Government is robbing Peter to pay Paul—the old adage—but it even has a twist on that one. It is robbing Peter to pay Peter. It is taking money away from the earners and putting it through the Government coffers. We economists call it the churn factor, or transaction costs. The Government is taking the money away from Peter, churning it through the Government system, taking off at least 20 percent, then deciding who it will give it back to at some later stage.

The Holmes poll tonight showed very clearly that people have had absolutely enough. When people were asked to vote on whether this Budget did it for them, 8,400 said no and a mere 1,800 said yes. They probably got a free phone call from the Government. But that result is quite astounding. Here we have the Government’s flagship. Today was the great launch of the Government’s flagship. This is how it is going to win the next election, but 8,400 were agin it and a mere 1,800 were in favour. It is quite extraordinary.

Very clearly this Government is in a desperate situation. This bill is a desperate measure driven by desperate people. The truly desperate people in this country are people like Marilynn McLachlan and Tony Gilbert, who were featured in the Sunday Star-Times a few weeks ago. They are the desperate people with four children who cannot make ends meet under 5 years of this Government. It is only a year ago that the Government said that if people earned $55,000 a year then they were rich. The Government has now turned around 1 year later and said: “Oh, gosh, we got it wrong. I’m sorry folks. We’re going to have to take your money away from you again and give you a bit back after we filter it through our own processes. Once we take off for ourselves whatever it is we want, we’ll give you a little bit back.”

I would have thought—and I think that Mr Brown’s amendment is a good one—that it should be immediate. If the Government is so concerned about the less well off, then it will be immediate. The truth is is that it will be October, then April, and then 2007. Such is the Government’s concern about the less well off it is saying: “Wait 2 years. Wait until after the next election and then we will give you some of your own resources back.” That is an outrageous situation. The members of the public who rang the Holmes show this evening clearly understood the largesse of this Government.

I rise with pleasure on behalf of United Future to speak to the second reading of the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill. I begin by commending the Minister, Steve Maharey, and many of the staff behind him who have worked very hard on this legislation and on this package, which will make a difference to families in New Zealand.

So far this debate has lacked some of the seriousness it deserves. Some members have surely made comments that they could only be joking about. As the well-known saying says: “It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.” Families have been forgotten year after year in New Zealand. It has become harder and harder to face the costs of raising children. Our free education system has somehow become more and more expensive, with uniforms, camp costs, school donations, etc., which are things only parents know and understand about. Those costs are borne every year by parents.

This bill is called the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill, which begs the question of who has been working for families over the past 20 years since 1984. Who has been sticking up for families in this Chamber over the last 20 years? We in United Future are very happy to know that the launching of the Families Commission, which will begin to advocate for families in New Zealand, is only weeks away. We can only reflect on what a difference there would have been in the last 20 years if there had been a Families Commission during the 1980s and the 1990s. We would not have had a situation developing like we do today where couples, under more and more stress, are waiting longer and longer to begin to have families.

Earlier tonight the Hon Richard Prebble made the most derogatory statement I have heard for some time. He said the poor would breed more, as though that were a crime. I remind him, and other members of the House, that the United Nations declaration in 1948 stated that every man and woman would have the right to marry and raise a family, and to have an income that would be able to sustain that family. It was not a right given just to the rich. It was a right given to every man and woman in this country and in the world to raise a family and to be able to support that family.

I am glad, personally, that the poor do have children. My parents were poor, and I am very glad that they decided to go ahead and have children. Maybe the honourable member Richard Prebble’s parents were poor, also. I do not know. But I am sure many other members in this House had very humble beginnings, and we are glad that their parents had the courage to still go ahead and do one of the greatest things any couple can do in the world—that is, to raise children. So many great men and women whom the world admires have been born into poor families, often number 10 of 13 or number eight of 10. No one should ever talk about the poor breeding like rabbits. It is a disgusting term. I have heard the rumour that the Gilbert-McLachlan family from Waihī are ACT supporters. I cannot understand why they would be. As they look at those four great kids they are trying to raise, I can only imagine how they might feel tonight, knowing that the leader of ACT has said that they are breeding like rabbits.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: No, I didn’t!

He said that poor people would breed more because of this bill. We had better hope that this bill and the Budget today do encourage more couples to take the steps of faith they need to have children and to embark on the greatest adventure and ambition—to be parents.

Our future as a nation is dependent upon families. During the century we now live in we will see, according to demographers, the world population decline. That is something many people have not yet begun to get their heads around. We in United Future are not speaking up for families because of some warm fuzzies we have about families but because it is essential to our survival as a nation, and for Western democracy and our civilisation. Either we support families and spend on them so they can be strengthened, or we spend more and more each year on the costs of family breakdown. We already spend $6 billion in this country on family breakdown. How can we mock spending the kind of money that is being released in this Budget to help build stronger families in this country when we know it will make a difference?

We need families to succeed: we need wealthy families to succeed and we need poor families to succeed. When Richard Prebble is old and infirm—no one should say that that has come already—and in some private hospital somewhere, and he looks out from under his blankets to see who is taking care of him, it will probably be the child of some poor family whose parents had the courage to still go ahead and have children, because that is the most important thing we do. In Richard Prebble’s ideology and theory, that child’s parents should not have ever had kids. They should not have bred, as he said so derogatively.

United Future welcome this bill and the assistance it will provide for families. Perhaps as important as the financial assistance that this bill will give is the encouragement it may send to low and middle income families that finally someone in this place is working for families. They have been forgotten by the previous two Governments. It is commendable that New Zealand First, the Greens, United Future, Labour, and the Progressives are putting aside petty politics to support this; although Peter Brown disgraced himself earlier and began to engage again in petty politics by taking cheap shots at a definition of “family” that he knows makes no sense whatsoever. The only thing he should put into his mouth, according to my dear mother, would be some soap right now to wash it out.

I believe that all of us—New Zealand First, the Greens, the Progressives, and ourselves—would have recommendations to make to Labour as to how this package might be delivered differently, but the point is that it is time for us to stand together for families and deliver something for them. I would have liked to see the assistance begin now, not in April and October next year, but at least we are beginning, and that is the important thing. This is not a time to let ideology get in the way of addressing the concerns of good working families in this country.

So United Future will be very pleased to support this legislation, and we commend it to the House. As we go through the Committee stage, may we give this bill the respect it deserves.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I raise this point of order under Standing Order 106, “Misrepresentation”, which states: “(1) A member who has spoken to a question may speak again to explain some material part of the member’s speech which has been misquoted, misunderstood or misrepresented in the same debate.” I cannot speak in this debate because the ACT party does not have a place, but I have now heard two United Future members state to the House that I made statements that poor people should not breed. In fact, most of the member’s speech was devoted to that.

I have gone back and checked my Hansard to see whether I made any such statement. There is no such statement in the two representations I have made today, and if the member wants to know exactly what I did say, I replied to an interjection from Mr David Cunliffe: “I say to Mr Cunliffe, the Liberal Party in Australia put forward a benefit breeding programme, where the Treasurer said: ‘This is a policy that is going to encourage people to have kids.’, and what happened to that party’s popularity? It went into free fall.” I do not see how those words can be interpreted as me saying to this House that poor people should not be able to breed.

That is not how that Standing Order is interpreted. The member knows very well—he has been here a long time—that when he uses that Standing Order, he has to quote the words that were used—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I just did.

—no—and to state that those words were incorrect, and not then to engage in an argument, as the member did subsequently.

I quoted exactly from my Hansard: “I say to Mr Cunliffe, the Liberal Party in Australia put forward a benefit breeding programme, where the Treasurer said: ‘This is a policy that is going to encourage people to have kids.’ , and what happened to that party’s popularity? It went into free fall.” I am saying to the House that nowhere in my speeches have I said what both United Future MPs have repeated to the House—that I made a statement that poor people cannot breed. I just say to the House that I come from a genuinely poor family, and I find the United Future party’s attacks on me to be outrageous.

That member knows very well how that Standing Order has to be applied: he merely states what was claimed to be said. He then says what he said, and nothing more than that. He does not engage in further argument as he has now done twice.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Speaker’s ruling 35/1 states: “A member who has been misrepresented must wait until the end of the speech of the member concerned before rising to make an explanation even though the speech in which the misrepresentation is alleged to have been made has been interrupted by the adjournment on a Friday and is not concluded until after the resumption of the debate on the following Tuesday.” The point is that the misrepresentation Mr Prebble has alleged could have been dealt with in debate, and should—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I’ve got no call left. Don’t be ridiculous!

The member raised a perfectly legitimate point of order, which was to say that he was misquoted in debate. The remedy a member has under the Standing Orders is to simply rise, state what the misquotation was, state what the actual statement was, and that is the end of the statement the member may make. He may not engage in further argument, which is to engage in further debate at that point. It is sufficient to simply state what was said, rather than what is claimed to have been said. That is the Standing Order and the ruling on that matter.

I actually agree with Dr Cullen’s interpretation of the Standing Order, and that is what I believe I did. I think we can now proceed.

Budget day 2004 is a great day for New Zealand and particularly for New Zealand families. The Working for Families package that is at the centre of the measures announced today will make a huge difference in the lives of low to middle income workers. These people are the big winners from today’s Budget, and I think that is just great. More than 60 percent of working families will be better off as a result of this Budget. Those in the $25,000 to $45,000 income range will be better off by up to almost $100 a week. The average increase will be $66 a week—a hugely significant increase that will make a real difference to the standard of living of these families.

As the advertisements say: “But wait, there’s more.” Increases to childcare assistance will provide an average $23 a week per child, and even that is not all. Increases to the accommodation supplement will give an average $19 a week more. This money is going where it will do the most good and make a real difference. It is not going into the pockets of the well-off, as tax cuts do. No, this money is going to help the Kiwi battlers and to fight child poverty. If, as the Prime Minister said, we use the measure of 50 percent of median income as the threshold, the percentage of children lifted from poverty is a staggering 70 percent. I think that is fantastic.

The Budget helps families in other ways, too. As someone who has a keen interest in education, I am delighted with the wonderful improvements in the provision of early childhood education. The rates of subsidy will increase significantly, and lots more families will be entitled to receive the subsidy. At least 33,000 children will benefit from this provision.

There is another improvement that will be very much appreciated by New Zealand parents. Up until now, free early childhood education has been provided only through the kindergarten service. But this Labour-led Government is extending this to all community-based childcare centres. From mid-2007, all 3 and 4-year-old children will be entitled to 20 hours of free education. I know that will be appreciated by parents, and I also know it will ensure that quality early childhood education and care is available for all children. That will provide a great start for those children and, as research shows, it will benefit them right through their educational lives.

Of course the National-ACT Opposition does not like this bill! It does not want to help low and middle income families. It only wants to give tax cuts—tax cuts that deliver the most to those who need it least. Those members want to look after their mates on the high incomes. They do not care about hard-working, low-income New Zealanders. The National-ACT Opposition also wants to cut the corporate tax rate, so that overseas investors are better off and more money flows off shore. Well, how sensible is that?

I tell those members that this Labour-led Government cares about hard-working New Zealand families, and we are going to look after them. The Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill is great policy, and I am proud to be part of a great Government that is making a huge improvement in the lives of New Zealand families.

I want to thank Dr Michael Cullen and the team of Ministers who have produced the best and most forward-looking Budget we have seen in New Zealand for decades. It is brilliant, and I am proud to be a part of this Government.

That member says this is a great day for New Zealand. Well, I wonder which alternative universe she has been in over the last few hours. Obviously she did not watch Holmes, where it was quite clear that most New Zealanders looked at this Budget and realised the emperor had no clothes, and there was nothing in the Budget for them. Steve Maharey must be absolutely gutted. This was supposed to be the great day for the launch of the vanguard of Labour Party policy. This Budget was supposed to be the flagship of Labour Party policy, and what did we have? We had had a comedy of errors. The day just has not gone Labour’s way. It started off at about 11 o’clock, when at the Dunedin lock-up the representatives of the social services sector were accidentally locked up 2 hours before any of the Budget presentation. People turned up at 11 o’clock, thinking that they were going to have a presentation from the Minister with all sorts of coffee, tea, and savouries, and were told that nothing would happen until 1 o’clock. Well, boy, were they annoyed! The Labour Party has made itself a laughing stock by forcing some very productive people in my city to sit around and twiddle their thumbs. They said, ladies and gentlemen, that the savouries were not even very good, either. That was 2 hours of wasted time.

The second part of the comedy of errors was, of course, some of the information that was put out with the Working for Families Budget special. I want to turn to the example of Aroha and Robert. Aroha and Robert earn $37,000. They have two children, one aged 4 years and the other 16 years. The piece of paper I am holding states that in 2007 they will be better off by $163 a week. The problem is that the Labour Party forgot that 16-year-olds actually age over the years: that 16-year-olds actually become 19-year-olds by 2007, and are not eligible for those particular parts of the benefit. I would like to thank Mandy at the 0800 number for Working for Families, who did some homework and realised the scenario was wrong. Well, if that is wrong, what else in there is wrong? We wonder what other misleading information is out there. I think New Zealanders can see through the Budget, and that is what we have seen tonight.

Only one in five families will benefit from this Budget, and that is why we have seen only one in five people ring up the Holmes show—probably most of them from Michael Cullen’s office. The Government must be absolutely gutted. Here we have the flagship Budget—the big day when people were all going to become excited, and everyone was going to love the Government and be grateful to it—and New Zealanders have seen right through it. Members on the Government side of the House thought they could flash all that cash around, handing back the money taken from hard-working taxpayers, and somehow supposed taxpayers would be grateful for that. That shows the arrogance of Government members. They think hard-working New Zealanders should be grateful for getting their own taxes back. That is why Don Brash called the Budget a cynical ploy, and a cynical attempt to win votes. Otherwise, why did the Government not do it in its first 5 years in office? And why do some of these things not come in until 2007?

In fact, the important issue today is why we are here in urgency. We are not passing any legislation that requires a change to be made overnight. We are not changing the taxation system.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: It’s about time you did some work, young lady.

I say to Dr Cullen that some of these changes do not come in until October. This urgency is all just part of the performance, to give the impression that we are doing something urgent and important. It seems the only thing the Minister is worried about is that people may go out and sign up on a benefit before midnight. If we look at the people who will benefit most from this measure, we see most of them are already dependent on the State.

I say that making more New Zealanders dependent on the State is no vision for New Zealand, and that making more middle-income New Zealanders reliant on the Government for a State handout is no vision for this country. Even the mother in the family from Waihi said she would prefer to have her money back in the hand than to receive a handout from the Government. That is one of the things this Government has not quite got. People want to be able to make their own spending choices, not the spending choices directed by this Government. The free childcare package was launched today with much fanfare. It was bit like paid parental leave, actually. The Government launched it thinking that everyone would be excited about it, but there are thousands of families who will miss out. The free childcare is only available to families who go to community-based early childhood education.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: How many do that?

It is about 40 percent of the early childhood education providers. Parents like choice. They like the idea that they can determine where their children will go to for early childhood education, be it kindergarten, Montessori, a community centre, or a private centre. Ideology has driven that provision. That is why the 20 hours of free childcare is not available to parents who have their children in private facilities, and that is a joke.

It is an arrogant assumption that New Zealanders will be wildly grateful to the Government. I think we have seen tonight that New Zealanders can see through this Budget. They can see it is a cruel hoax, and they will not benefit from it. Four out of five families will be no better off as a result of this Budget. The Government thought those four out of five families would somehow be grateful for the benefits that will accrue to the other one out of five families. It does not work that way, and New Zealanders can see it is a cruel hoax. It is income-churning at best—taking the money off families by overtaxing them for the last 5 years just to hand that money back, so this Government can determine the spending decisions of New Zealanders and continue its social engineering agenda. That is what this Budget is about. This measure is not about welfare reform; there is very little in it to do with welfare reform. Where is the miraculous universal benefit that Michael Cullen has been talking about since 1990, and that Steve Maharey said would be in place by 2002? It has not happened. Every time the Social Services Committee asks about that, they say they are working on it. The Budget documents today stated they are working on it. I think the Minister has worked out that it is a helluva lot more complex than he originally thought.

The incentives announced today make welfare more attractive for some people. What we have seen today will entrench welfare dependency further in this country, rather than reduce it. That is why this Budget is a cruel hoax. Future Directions goes in the wrong direction. That is why, in terms of replacement legislation, National has its own ideas on how to take people from welfare and put them into work, and on how to support those families. National’s ideas will be far more effective than some of the trash that has been served up today. This is a cruel hoax. The Holmes poll was a good indication of how most New Zealanders see this Budget, and Dr Cullen must have been very upset to see that flat in the face on television tonight. It will be interesting to read the editorials and the letters to the editor. We will see more New Zealanders realise the emperor has no clothes.

I was hoping that somebody out there might be listening to my speech, but after that performance from Ms Rich there is no show of that. People will all have turned off their radios and gone back to bed, and I do not blame them for doing so. They have just heard the revisiting of the class wars: the rich versus the poor. National Party members will abdicate responsibility, and will all resign and let Paul Holmes run the country by telephone poll. That would be a lot cheaper than having those members over there on the Opposition benches being paid for doing nothing. So it is probably not a bad idea for them to rely on the Holmes poll to come up with their policies. There was not one idea in the 10 long minutes of that speech on the bill from the Opposition spokesperson on social welfare. At least we know what the ACT party believes in. At least we can argue with its members about what is better for people, based on ACT’s policy of a 20c in the dollar flat taxation rate. But with National, we have a leader who—

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: 11 percent for that family in Waihi.

It would be 11 percent. Well, that would pay for a lot of health services! People would not have to worry about getting their hips and their knees replaced. They would never get anything replaced under a National Government, with an 11 percent taxation rate to give to the family in Waihi what this Government has given it.

It is no wonder Don Brash is scratching his head and trying to figure out what to do. He has already committed the National Party to a policy of no tax cuts—none at all. The National Party says it will look after low to middle income workers, but it does not have any policy that could be described as saying how it will do that. At least ACT says that on a 20c in the dollar flat taxation rate, that family in Waihi would be $39 a week better off. The ACT party will go out there and sell that. Its members will say if people vote for ACT, it will give them $39 a week. ACT will tell people not to vote for Labour, because the miserable people in Labour will give them $150 a week, which they do not need. ACT will say it is much better to have no health services and no education services and to be given 39 bucks for that, as against the Labour - Progressive Coalition Government’s giving people $150. ACT will have to take another Holmes poll on that one, to see whether it has it right. Maybe ACT will figure out that it is wrong, but we do not know that.

Maurice Williamson will tell all the people in his electorate he is opposed to people getting $150 a week. He will tell them he knows what is best for them, and they should not receive more for their accommodation supplement. Maurice Williamson will give them nothing. If people vote for Maurice Williamson, he will give them nothing. But he will tell people not to dare to vote for the Labour - Progressive Coalition Government’s Budget. The National Party talks about ideology. Talk about dumb! National members are going to vote against this bill on the basis of ideology, because it gives workers, families, and children over $50 a week, when they are promising them nothing and ACT is promising them 39 bucks a week. I do not think I have to speak any more, because those people over there on the Opposition benches have said it all for us.

I seek leave for the eleventh call in this debate to be split between New Zealand First and National, with National having the first call.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is not.

Let me first make it very clear that National cares deeply about low to middle income working families. And let me point out how much Dr Cullen and Labour care about them, because the families who are most disadvantaged in New Zealand at the moment are those where there is a couple with one person working on, say, $10 an hour. After that person has worked for 8 hours, in order to get another dollar in the pocket at the moment he or she has to work 49 hours a week. Now, has Labour done anything tonight to fix that problem? Labour is to do something in 2006 to help that family. But if Dr Cullen and Labour cared at all about low-income families, they would do something tonight to help that family. How is it right for a family, after 8 hours’ work at $10 an hour, to earn a certain amount of money and not to earn another dollar till the income earner has worked 49 hours a week? The Government is changing the abatement rate. This bill does change that rate, but when does it do that? It does it—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Midnight tonight.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: Not midnight tonight. When is the Government to help that low-income family? In the explanatory note of the bill it states that it will be on 1 April 2006.

What the arrogant Dr Cullen does not seem to understand is that there are other ways of helping low to middle income families. This is the most stupid way to do so, because it turns tens of thousands more hard-working New Zealand families into beneficiaries. That is what is so wrong with this bill. Dr Cullen sits there and says the only way National would do that is by changing the taxation rates, which would cost billions and give tax breaks to people who do not need them. All I can say to people like Steve Maharey and Dr Cullen is that they should think a bit more about how they could be innovative regarding taxation. They are clearly so arrogant they have not thought the thing through. There are other ways of delivering support for low to middle income people, but to tax them, then give money back to them, and expect them to think that is great is just stupidity. Yet that is what Labour is doing. It is taxing people more, because with bracket-creep low to middle income earners are paying more and more in tax. With all the new taxes that Labour has introduced, people are paying more and more in tax, and the Government, instead of reducing tax, says that it will pay that money back. It has even changed the name from tax credit to “in-work payment”, or something. I cannot believe that Labour thinks the people of New Zealand will buy that one—that on one hand they are taxed more, and then on the other hand a couple of years later they are given a little bit of that money back. The Government wonders why it is that on the Holmes show four out of five people do not like it, and only one in five says it makes sense.

The disgrace of what Labour is doing in this measure is that there are low to middle income families that are hurting. They are hurting right now, and hurting very much. But the disgraceful thing about this legislation is that the families that are hurting the most will not be helped for a couple of years. That is the disgraceful thing, because the abatement arrangements hurt people who are trying to get off benefits the most. That is because of the way the benefit abatement interacts with the family support tax credit, and Labour is not changing that till 1 April 2006. That is a disgrace! It shows the Government does not care about the families who are hurting the most. It is throwing out a couple of little crumbs from 1 April next year, but is doing nothing serious to help those families until 2006. It is no wonder people are not supporting this legislation tonight.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Friday)